In September 2013, Fripp announced King Crimson's return to activity with a "very different reformation to what has gone before: seven players, four English and three American, with three drummers": Fripp, Collins, Jakszyk, Levin, Mastelotto, Rieflin and Harrison. Fripp cited several reasons to make a comeback, varying from the practical to the whimsical: "I was becoming too happy. Time for a pointed stick.” Noting that the final shows in 2008 were not how he wished to let go of King Crimson, he also wrote that his two prime aims for the reformation of were “Redemption and Completion”.
Unlike previous incarnations, which had invariably created their own new music catalogue, and vocabulary, the final incarnation re-invented the existing catalogue. “We were instructed/advised by Robert Fripp,” Tony Levin observed, “to look at the older classic King Crimson material as if we had written it. And so we did that with a lot of older material that the band had done before…” “What I like about this band is, that what it is actually doing is not what it appears to be doing...This is King Crimson re-imagined” as Fripp put it.
As befits a band focused on live performances, this incarnation never recorded a studio album, but released a regular series of live albums. The first was “Live at the Orpheum” from 2014 touring, followed by the ever-popular official bootleg “Live in Toronto” and the DVD and live album “Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind” drawn from their 2015 tour of Japan.
In 2016, Bill Rieflin had to step aside for health reasons, and Jeremy Stacey, who coincidentally knew Fripp from his time in Bournemouth, stepped in as the third drummer and keyboard player for their extensive European tour. In 2017, Bill was able to return, as a full-time keyboard player, and the band were captured on more live releases – Live in Chicago, Live in Vienna and the BluRay release “Meltdown”, capturing the band’s triumphant shows in Mexico.
In 2019, it was announced that Bill Rieflin would again need to leave the band, which played exactly 50 live shows In Europe, USA, Central and South America on the 50th anniversary of the band. These shows included the band’s first ever performances in Brazil, with an appearance at Rock in Rio, the footage of which was included in the physical release of the “In the Court of the Crimson King” documentary.
In 2021, the band finished their touring cycle with shows in the USA and Japan. “Music is our Friend”, a recording of their final US show in Washington, was released in 2022 and after seven years, the longest of any incarnation of King Crimson, the band moved “from sound to silence”.
“Hopefully, this KC will increasingly be heard and seen for what it is. And it is remarkable. The best band I’ve been in, musically, personally, professionally.” – Fripp’s notes to Live in Mexico.
