King Crimson – Beat (CD+DVD-Audio)
Full album 2016 stereo mix + bonus tracks:
DVD-A: Beat – Album: DVD-A 5.1 Lossless Surround Sound, DTS 5.1 Surround Sound
Beat (Audio) – Album new mix – Album original mix – Both in High Resolution Stereo – Album, rough mixes of complete album + additional audio tracks.
(Video) Promo film for Heartbeat, two live tracks from Munich
“Beat” was released in June 1982 just eight months after the 80s Crimson lineup debut album “Discipline”. It marked the first occasion where a King Crimson line-up had remained intact for a two album stretch and was also the first album by the band to employ a separate producer – Rhett Davies. The juxtaposition of lyrics heavily influenced by 50s beat luminaries Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady.
The complex polyrhythmic musical textures of the ‘80s Crimson, the strength of the songs and the cohesion of the studio performances, all helped the album chart upon release in the US and the UK.
Songs like ‘Waiting Man’, ‘Neal and Jack and Me’ and ‘Heartbeat’ became firm favourites with fans and concert goers. ‘Heartbeat’ in particular was an FM radio regular in the US and even merited a promo film shot for the then-emerging music TV market, while one of the album’s twin instrumental tracks ‘Sartori In Tangier’ anticipated the emerging interest in African based rhythmic styles that would become such a fascination for musicians in the latter part of the decade. As ever, Crimson was pushing forward, looking for new methods to communicate internally as a band and externally with an audience. It was, perhaps, the nearest King Crimson ever came to the rock music ‘mainstream’.
As with other albums in the King Crimson CD/DVD-A series, the stereo CD features a new stereo mix by Robert Fripp and Steven Wilson, while the DVD-A features 5.1 mixes of the album by Steven Wilson, high resolution stereo mixes of the original and new stereo mixes. Additionally, the original album is presented in rough mix form along with additional audio extras, video performance footage of two songs from The Alabamahalle, Germany and the original promo film for Heartbeat.