Due to the weight of the vinyl, special shipping rates apply.
Boz Burrell: Vocals, Bass
Mel Collins:
Saxes, Flute
Robert
Fripp: Guitar, Mellotron
Ian Wallace: Drums
Earthbound, originally released in 1972, was one of the earliest (if not the
first) “official bootleg” released by a major rock band, consisting of a series
of deliberately lo-fi live recordings of King Crimson’s Islands era line-up on
tour in the USA. When issued, because of its mid-price, it was excluded from
the main album charts in the UK but topped the mid-price charts rubbing
shoulders with Jim Reeves and Mantovani. Atlantic in the USA didn’t even bother
to release it. By then, the band had broken up and the label had already been
alerted to the likelihood of a new King Crimson line-up promised for later in
the year. Like the later live album, USA, Earthbound remained deleted on vinyl and
unreleased on CD until both were finally released in 2002 on CD. An expanded
CD/DVD edition appeared in 2017 alongside the Sailors’ Tales boxed set. Ironically
this non-availability in the peak CD era served to enhance interest in the
album while DGM’s live releases made fans aware that there was a larger story
to be told of this line-up’s history. When Robert Fripp was asked to guest on
the second Grinderman project, Nick Cave noted: “I wanted to work with Robert Fripp because he has done some of the
most uniquely unsettling guitar work I have ever heard along with some of the most
delicate and finessed” explained Cave. “I grew up listening to a lot of the
King Crimson stuff. The vinyl copy of the phenomenal live album Earthbound, is
one of my most treasured possessions.”
With Robert Fripp and Mel Collins having
both appeared in the 2014/2021 line-ups and the Islands era material a regular
feature of those live shows, interest in Earthbound and that era of King
Crimson music is probably higher now, 50 years on from the original release,
than it was at the time.
Cut by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering from
the restored masters of the original recordings used for the CD/DVD release in
2017, the new vinyl version is still nobody’s idea of a ‘hi-fi experience’.
However, it remains one of the grittiest, most powerful live documents of an
era with a band pushing at the limits in a manner which few of their
contemporaries ever managed.
www.dgmlive.com
