Earthbound (King Crimson album)
 | This article needs to be divided into sections. (July 2016) |
| Untitled | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
| BBC Online | favourable[2] |
Earthbound is a live album by the band King Crimson, released in 1972 as a budget record shortly after the line-up that recorded it had broken up. It contains the band's first official live release of their signature song "21st Century Schizoid Man," and an extended live version of their 1970 non-LP B-side "Groon." It also contains two improvised tracks with scat vocals from Boz Burrell.
The album's sound quality is very poor, because of its being recorded onto cassette tape (a low-fidelity recording medium by 1972 standards) by live sound engineer Hunter MacDonald. The liner notes to the original LP cover and recent CD reissues of the album state that it was "captured live on an Ampex stereo cassette fed from a Kelsey Morris custom built mixer ... in the rain from the back of a Volkswagen truck." Atlantic Records, King Crimson's original North American distributor, declined release of Earthbound because of its poor sound engineering. Because of its cassette origins, the sound could not be significantly improved on later CD reissues of the album.
Track listing
| No. | Title | Notes | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "21st Century Schizoid Man" (including "Mirrors"), (Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald, Peter Sinfield) | * recorded at the Armoury, Wilmington, Delaware, United States, 11 February 1972 | 11:45 |
| 2. | "Peoria" (Boz Burrell, Mel Collins, Fripp, Ian Wallace) | * recorded at The Barn, Peoria, Illinois, United States, 10 March 1972 | 7:30 |
| 3. | "Sailor's Tale" (instrumental), (Fripp) | * recorded at the Baseball Park, Jacksonville, Florida, United States, 26 February 1972 | 4:45 |
| No. | Title | Notes | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4. | "Earthbound" (instrumental), (Burrell, Collins, Fripp, Wallace) | * recorded at the Kemp Coliseum, Orlando, Florida, United States, 27 February 1972 | 6:08 |
| 5. | "Groon" (instrumental), (Fripp) | * recorded at the Armoury, Wilmington, Delaware, United States, 11 February 1972 | 15:30 |
Personnel
- King Crimson
- Robert Fripp – electric guitar
- Boz Burrell – bass guitar, vocals
- Mel Collins – alto, tenor and baritone saxophone, mellotron
- Ian Wallace – drums
- Additional personnel
- Hunter MacDonald – VCS3, engineering
References
- ^ Eder, Bruce (2011). "Earthbound - King Crimson | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 28 June 2011.
- ^ Jones, Chris (2002). "BBC – Music – Review of King Crimson – Earthbound, USA & Thrak". BBC Online. Retrieved 30 July 2016.
