Previously released in the 2015 THRAK boxed set, now available to download for the first time.
A 67 minute fly-on-the-wall audio documentary, edited & assembled by David Singleton from stereo running DAT tapes of the recording sessions for the album at Real World Studios, Box, 24th October to 19th November 1994. Recording engineers David Bottrill and Russell Kearney.
Writing in his notes in the THRAK box, David Singleton compared working with these archive tapes from the early era of digital recording technology to that of the previous boxed sets where analogue tapes, from 2 inch multitracks down to humble cassettes, threw up all sorts of problems. The onset of digital turned out to provide a whole new set of challenges.
“The majority of the live recordings and all the studio outtakes, however, were a different story – captured, as they were, on early digital technology (Digital Audio Tapes and ADATs), which have not proved outstanding as archive formats. Transferring these concerts thus often proved just as problematic in different ways as those troublesome old analogue tapes, which needed to be baked inside an incubator before playing. Thereafter we were, however, faced with an entirely modern phenomenon – that of too much information. Unlike the 1970s, where professional live recordings were rare, we now had a professional multi-track recording of every concert. And the habit of using a fly-on-the-wall ‘running Digital Audio Tape’ to record everything that happened in the studio - even when the main tapes were not running - meant that we had some fifty or sixty hours of studio chatter and experimentation.
Those studio outtakes have been edited to make JurassiKc THRAK. The opening track, VROOOM, had already been compiled by Alex Stormy Mundy as one of his ever-popular free ‘Hot Tickles’ on the DGMLive website. Taking that template, but tweaking it, the rest of the CD steps through the various stages of each of the songs. It makes an audio documentary complete with appropriate banter and - yes, the gold dust much loved by fans - early versions of songs that never made it on to the album.”
King Crimson at Real World in 1994 (photos: Tony Levin).
Take a look behind the scenes at the making of the THRAK album at Real World in the electronic press kit from 1995, now available on the official King Crimson YouTube channel.
King Crimson Double Trio (photo: Kevin Westenberg).
