King Crimson

condition (record/cover): EX / NM

A 1983 unofficial release containing the Larks' Tongues In Aspic-era King Crimson quartet of Robert Fripp, John Wetton, Bill Bruford and David Cross live in Atlanta on 23 June 1973, with one previously unreleased track ("Doctor D" itself) and two pieces ("Book Of Saturday", "Exiles") added from the band's Concertgebouw, Amsterdam show of 23 November 1973. The line-up was the Crimson configuration that produced Larks' Tongues, Starless And Bible Black and Red, possibly the heaviest jazz-rock band in Europe at the moment of recording.

The contents are exceptional. "Larks' Tongues In Aspic Part One" stretches across the entire first side. "Easy Money" is taken at a more aggressive tempo than the studio version. "Doctor D" is the curiosity: a previously unreleased improvisation built around David Cross's electric violin and Wetton's distorted bass, the kind of group invention that the Larks' Tongues Crimson generated every night and committed to tape only on rare occasions. The closing two Amsterdam tracks document the band already further along the road that would lead to Red the following year.

The pressing on offer is the early-1980s unofficial Q-9015 release, in a gatefold package with member bios, on some matrices in blue-splatter vinyl. As with the other early-Crimson bootlegs, DGM's official archival programme has since made comparable material available through legitimate channels. An artifact of the 1980s bootleg economy with content that remains genuinely worth hearing.