| Artist: | King Crimson |
| Title: | Epitaph |
| Label: | Discipline Global Mobile DGM |
| Length(s): | 73+50m minutes |
| Year(s) of release: | 1997 |
| Month of review: | 04/1997 |
| BBC Radio 1 Sessions | ||
| 1) | 21 St. Century Schizoid Man | 7.06 |
| 2) | In The Court Of The Crimson King | 6.27 |
| 3) | Get Thy Bearings | 5.59 |
| 4) | Epitaph | 7.08 |
| Fillmore East, New York, 21 November 1969 | ||
| 5) | A Man, A City | 11.41 |
| 6) | Epitaph | 7.42 |
| 7) | 21 St. Century Schizoid Man | 7.16 |
| Fillmore West, San Francisco, 14 December 1969 | ||
| 8) | Mantra | 3.47 |
| 9) | Travel Weary Capricorn | 3.15 |
| 10) | Improv. - Travel Bleary Capricorn | 2.23 |
| 11) | Mars | 8.53 |
Disc 2:
| Fillmore West, San Francisco, 15 December 1969 | ||
| 1) | In the court of the Crimson King | 7.13 |
| 2) | Drop in | 5.14 |
| 3) | A man, a city | 11.19 |
| 4) | Epitaph | 7.31 |
| 5) | 21st. Century Schizoid Man | 7.37 |
| 6) | Mars | 8.42 |
Do not think you'll get a box like the one of the Great Deceiver. The package includes a carton box into which all four CDs should fit, the CD's themselves are each in one of those carton things used for CD singles. This makes the box the approximately the size of a CD, a little less broad, but a little higher.
Now, to the music. As with the Great Deceiver box, some songs are on this CD a few times, the story being that King Crimsons versions of the songs differ enough to warrant double or triple exposures. Well, the versions do not differ as widely as one might expect, but personally I do not care much for that. View it as a historical necessity.
Epitaph, In the Court of the Crimson King sound like a very potent, emotional form of the Moody Blues. While Barclay James Harvest has often been described as a more boring version of the Moodies, KC is on the other end of the scale. Epitaph, with the wavery voice of Greg Lake sounds really desolate.
Travel Weary Capricorn is a rather soft jazzy track, while on the following improvisation contains Spanish acoustic guitar. Drop In (the basis for The Letters from Islands) is mostly sax and Greg Lake singing in the beginning. Like Travel... the song has a jazzy feel to it. It is incomplete because a part of the song was lost.
Get Thy Bearings is not a very good track I think. It smells too much of the sixties and exists in contrast with the other songs. By the way this is the only studio version in existence and I understand it was written by Donovan which came as some surprise. The song has some "getting stoned" passages, so if DGM would want to release a single from this album to be played on for instance MTV, they might do good to release this and let it be forbidden, thus ensuring great sales.
Personally I like Mars (by Holst) very much. A very repetitive track that really builds up tension. Very menacing and fits very well with the band.
A Man, A City is an earlier version of Pictures of a City, hailing from the second KC album, In the Wake of Poseidon. This track is very hectic with busy drumming by Giles and lots of saxophone by McDonald (I think) and can be likened in fact to the ultimate King Crimson anthem, 21st Schizoid Man. Three versions of 21st ... are to be found on this album. I hardly need tell of this powerful, unfortunately prophetic track ("Nothing he's got he really needs"). A very aggressive track that opened up new vistas for rock.