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King Crimson / Starless deluxe box

By Paul Sinclair

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starless

Starless is a new King Crimson box set that offers an in-depth overview of the band’s celebrated mid-1970’s live line-up at its most exploratory.

When we say ‘in-depth’ that’s what we mean since this set will contain a staggering 27 discs, made of up 23 CDs, two DVD-As and two blu-ray audio discs.

19 of the CDs are of live performance material with a 20th disc offering the 2011 stereo mix of Starless And Bible Black by Steven Wilson and Robert Fripp. The other three CDs are described as ‘ bonus’ discs and contain ‘restored soundboard/bootlegs and audio curios’.

The two DVD-A discs and two Blu-Ray discs contain concert and studio recordings in stereo, quadraphonic and full 5.1 surround sound – all in high-resolution audio.

All this content is presented in a 12-inch box with a comprehensive booklet featuring sleeve notes and photos, memorabilia, album and poster prints. The 24 discs (i.e. not including the bonus CDs) are packaged in eight individual three-disc digi-packs within the album sized box.

Further details listed below, but this set is limited to a single pressing run (the run quantity hasn’t been stated).

Starless can currently be ordered from Burning Shed and Amazon in the US but more pre-order options should be available soon. It will be issued on 28 October 2014.


More details about the content:

* Seven CDs taken from multi-track tape including 4CDs of material from the Glasgow and Zurich shows, freshly assembled and mastered in Hi-Res from the original Great Deceiver mixes by David Singleton at DGM Soundworld in 2014, the Amsterdam show The Nightwatch mixed by Steven Wilson and a previously unheard preparatory of material from the same show prepared by George Chkiantz (engineer of all live KC shows of the era and the Red album).

* Eleven CDs drawn from high quality stereo reel to reel soundboard tapes. 8 making their first appearance on CD with the remaining three re-mastered or drawn from new tape sources.

* One CD presenting the performance from the ORTF Paris TV broadcast

* DVD-A 1 features the Starless & Bible Black album in 5.1 Surround, with new & original stereo album mixes in High Resolution Stereo plus bonus audio material.

* DVD-A 2 features material from Mainz (mixed by David Singleton), Amsterdam (mixed by Steven Wilson) & a later show from Pittsburgh (mixed by George Chkiantz) in quadraphonic audio and High-Resolution Stereo.

* Both DVD-A discs are region 0 playable in all areas & compatible with all DVD players and DVD Rom players

* Blu-Ray Disc 1 features full lossless audio 24/192 transfers of material from the Glasgow and Zurich shows, freshly assembled & mastered from the original Great Deceiver mixes by David Singleton at DGM Soundworld in 2014 in LPCM stereo.

* Blu-Ray Disc 1 also features the Amsterdam show The Nightwatch, mixed by Steven Wilson and the George Chkiantz preparatory mix stereo in 24/96 High-resolution stereo & a 24/96 transfer of the original David Singleton/Robert Fripp mix of The Nightwatch.

* Blu-Ray Disc 2 features Starless & Bible Black in 5.1 Surround (DTS-HD MAS & LPCM 24/96) alongside new and original stereo masters of the album, a needledrop of an original vinyl pressing plus audio extras.

* Blu-Ray Disc 2 also features the Quad mixes of material from the Mainz, Amsterdam & Pittsburgh concerts.

* Blu-Ray Disc 2 also features the ORTF Paris TV footage in a new hi-res transfer from the original source files.

* 3 additional bonus CDs of audio restored soundboard/bootlegs and audio curios are also included.

* 1 further concert (bootleg quality audio) is also available via included download ticket.

* Album sized booklet with rare/unseen photos, new sleeve notes by Sid Smith, technical notes on the recordings by David Singleton, eye-witness accounts from fans who attended the gigs plus memorabilia including an album print, poster, replica concert ticket, press release with folder, photos and more besides.

* Limited to a single pressing run.

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20 Comments

20 thoughts on “King Crimson / Starless deluxe box”

  1. Pingback: DEAL / King Crimson: Starless | superdeluxeedition

  4. I’ve pre-ordered this from Amazon.ca but at the moment the box is gone from the website. It says, “Sign up to be notified” blah-blah-blah. Any ideas?

    1. I wonder if that 103 pounds include the import taxes.
      Concerning the Red anStarless boxes:
      If you have the Mainz show combined wtih the complete Central Park Concert and both the Night watch and the GreatDeceiver Part 1 and Part 2, how much new material is there in those Boxes.
      Warm regards, Michaèl

  7. Thanks as always for the multiple pre-order links. Amazon.ca is probably going to be my go-to. Even with international shipping to the US, this will be considerably cheaper than all other outlets!

    Looking forward to this set. Always interesting to hear how the band varied otherwise familiar material from night to night.

  8. I cannot think of any other artist with a better curation of their back catalogue than King Crimson. Robert Fripp has a very intelligent and thorough approach to compiling and packaging the band’s studio and live work. Not to mention the amount of recordings made available for sale, and the fact that the source and quality of the live recordings is always mentioned on the releases….

    If we are lucky, WHD Entertainment in Japan will release this “Starless” box together with an extra ‘Assemble’ box set full of additional Mini-LP Sleeves in which to store the many discs – as they did with the previous two box sets:
    – “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic (The Complete Recordings)” [check Discogs release #5123824]
    – “The Road To Red” [check Discogs release #5172206]

  9. I still haven’t worked all the way through ‘Road to Red’ (the ‘Lark’s’ box took me a year) but this is too tempting to resist.

    In my dreams I see an equivalent box for ‘A Trick of the Tail’/’Wind and Wuthering’ and the accompanying tour…

    1. When taking ‘The Road To Red’ as reference…

      1.What is unique to the 2013 ‘USA’ CD+DVD set:
      – “Casino Arena, Asbury Park – 2013 Mix” (10 tracks) on CD [on the R2R box set, this 2013 Mix is available as LPCM Stereo 24/96 on DVD-A, and as LPCM 24/192 on Blu-ray].
      – “USA: Original UK Vinyl Transfer – LPCM Stereo (24/96)” (6 tracks) on DVD-A [on the R2R box set, this vinyl transfer is available on Blu-ray].

      2.What is unique to the 2009 ‘Red’ CD+DVD set:
      – “Red (Original Album)” (5 tracks) in stereo on CD, as MLP Lossless Stereo (24/96) on DVD-A, and as PCM Stereo 2.0 (24/48) on DVD-A too [on the R2R box set is featured instead “Red (2013 Stereo mix)” on CD, and as LPCM Stereo (24/96) on both DVD-A and Blu-ray].
      – “Red (Original Album)” (5 tracks) in surround sound on DVD-A, as both MLP Lossless 5.1 Surround and DTS 5.1 Digital Surround [on the R2R box set this 2009 surround sound version of the original album is available on Blu-ray, as both DTS-HD Master Surround and LPCM 5.1 Surround).
      – Bonus track “Red (Trio Version)” on CD, as MLP Lossless Stereo (24/96) on DVD-A, and as PCM Stereo 2.0 (24/48) on DVD-A too [on the R2R box set, it is available as LPCM Stereo (24/96) on Blu-ray].
      – Bonus track “Fallen Angel (Trio Version / Instrumental)” in stereo on CD, as MLP Lossless Stereo (24/96) on DVD-A, and as PCM Stereo 2.0 (24/48) on DVD-A too [on the R2R box set, it is available as LPCM Stereo (24/96) on Blu-ray].
      – Bonus track “Fallen Angel (Trio Version / Instrumental)” in surround sound on DVD-A, as both MLP Lossless 5.1 Surround and DTS 5.1 Digital Surround [on the R2R box set, it is available on Blu-ray as both DTS-HD Master Surround and LPCM 5.1 Surround].
      – Bonus track “Providence (Full Version) (Taken From ‘The Great Deceiver’)” in stereo on DVD-A as MLP Lossless Stereo (24/96) and PCM Stereo 2.0 (24/48) [on the R2R box set, it is available on Blu-ray as LPCM Stereo (24/192) as part of the 10-track ‘Palace Theatre, Providence, RI’ concert].
      – Bonus track “Providence (Full Version) (Taken From ‘The Great Deceiver’)” in surround sound on DVD-A as MLP Lossless 5.1 Surround and DTS 5.1 Digital Surround [on the R2R box set on Blu-ray as DTS-HD Master Surround and LPCM 5.1 Surround].
      – Bonus track “A Voyage To The Centre Of The Cosmos (Taken From ‘The Great Deceiver’)” in stereo on DVD-A as MLP Lossless Stereo (24/96) and PCM Stereo 2.0 (24/48) [on the R2R box set, it is available on Blu-ray as LPCM Stereo (24/192) as part of the 10-track ‘Palace Theatre, Providence, RI’ concert].
      – Bonus track “A Voyage To The Centre Of The Cosmos (Taken From ‘The Great Deceiver’)” in surround sound on DVD-A as MLP Lossless 5.1 Surround and DTS 5.1 Digital Surround [on the R2R box set on Blu-ray as DTS-HD Master Surround and LPCM 5.1 Surround].

      These are the differences I observed when comparing the releases.

      1. Thank you SO VERY much – i’m really surprised, given that the RtR box looks so complete that there are still so many variations – I certainly wouldn’t have figured it out…
        I’m also hoping that this isn’t the case with the Starless box.
        Again, Thank you.

  13. Amazon UK will, however, let you sign-up for an e-mail alert when this becomes available to pre-order.
    On a slightly different matter – if anyone could help i’d be grateful…
    I have the RED box along with the Red 2 disc set and the USA 2 disc set – and even having them in front of me I still can’t work out if I need either or both of the 2 disc sets… is there anything on these that isn’t included on the RED box?
    Confusion at my age is normal (apparently).

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