You no doubt think it is very easy to rattle off a few words, a witty and puckered paragraph or three, by way of a contribution to the ‘sleeve notes’ of these ancient but splendid recordings that probably at this very moment are *£Ω¥!??*-ing your ears.  You think that... but you are wrong... it is not easy!

The cursor blinks and blinks.  The phone rings.  Of course its Ian who I have not seen for two years.  He is here in London rehearsing with John Wetton and Steve Hackett for a tour of Japan.  He has finished his ‘notes’.  He has contributed tapes and memorabilia vital to the album.  He offers to tell me what he has written however we decide it  is more amusing if I remain in ignorance.

We arrange to have dinner.  And in passing try to remember why the key of  “I Talk To The Wind”, which he may play in Japan, was changed for the record thus making the vocal harmonies extraordinarily difficult to sing in tune.  A classic example of KC behaviour.  Nobody, including Captain Jean Luc Frippard, in the studio or when the band played live was ever quite sure what was going to happen.  But whatever came to pass somehow  the ensemble would make the most, or as often occurred, a highwire-walking, ear-defying, up and down yours, thank you very much for the post card, beast of it.

FAQ.  “People know that you ‘did the lights’ and wrote the words but you didn’t actually play anything did you and yet you were regarded as a member of the band can you explain how this came about”?

The long answer is ‘Yes” and the short answer is I humbly suggest, that if you can ever find it, you purchase, peruse and listen to a little known late sixties album entitled “The Cheerful Insanity Of Giles, Giles & Fripp” produced for the Decca label by a sly cove called Bickerton who later became chairman of the PRS.  Within a year of its release and demission somebody had stirred a cauldron, pointed a bone, painted a throne and crowned a king.  You’ll work it out.

Enough of this!  Go!  Turn high the volume and relish well the magicke of this well nam ’ed album “Epitaph”; be amazed and thrilled as I was many loves ago to be part of the original King Crimson.  Frame, Set and Match.

Peter Sinfield, December 1996

Taken from the sleeve notes to “Epitaph”