Rarely has a band survived as long as prog-rock supergroup King Crimson, forming over 45 years ago, and struggling to continue and thrive through the adversity and heartache that the music industry can be. However, this strong-willed inspiration that lead guitarist Adam Jones to create Tool, has announced a relatively new lineup of talented musicians to create a new album.
The band has been M.I.A. since 2009, yet recently, guitarist and founder Robert Fripp has come forward, stating that the band is currently “in motion,” and that “[t]his is a very different reformation to what has gone before: seven players, four English and three American, with three drummers. The Seven-Headed Beast of Crim is in Go! mode.”
Go! mode indeed. The band is currently in it’s eighth lineup, featuring drummers Gavin Harrison, Bill Rieflin, and Pat Mastelotto; bassist Tony Levin, saxophonist Mel Collins; and rhythm guitarist Jakko Jakszyk. According to Consequence of Sound, “Each musician has been a member or collaborator at some point in King Crimson’s 45-plus-year run, most notably Mastelotto, who joined in 1994 and appears on some 20 albums, and Collins, who replaced Ian McDonald on 1970′s Lizard and 1971′s Islands.”
Robert Fripp has stunned the music world, making this announcement a mere year after announcing his retirement. His statements in an interview with Financial Times cited issues with his record label, Universal, and dubbed his ongoing career, a “joyless exercise in futility.”
Yet this ironically joyous news is not without a somber note. Remaining M.I.A. is long-time frontman and guitarist Adrian Belew, who earlier this year made the decision to join Nine Inch Nails, yet later dropped out of the project. His work will always be a part of NIN’s latest album, Hesitation Marks.
Fans of this legendary group can mark their calendars for the new album to be polished and dropped somewhere around September of 2014.
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