Limited to a single pressing run, Starless offers an in-depth overview of King Crimson's celebrated mid-1970's live line-up at its most exploratory.
Few bands have offered as much variety in material from night to night, and King Crimson's propensity for improvisation and fondness for playing its newest material - often unreleased on record at the time of performance - is legendary.
---------
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.
Starless is presented in a 12" box with a comprehensive booklet featuring sleeve notes and photos aplenty, memorabilia, album and poster prints, and 3 bonus audio CDs.
Features:
* 19 CDs of live performance material.
* 7 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).
* 11 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.
* 1 CD presenting the performance from the ORTF Paris TV broadcast
* CD 20 features the 2011 stereo mix of Starless And Bible Black by Steven Wilson and Robert Fripp
* 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.
* Discs packaged in 8 individual 3 disc digipaks within an album sized box
* 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.
Review
'Starless completes the story of Crimson's until-now most heralded incarnation, bridging the gap between Larks' Tongues in Aspic and The Road to Red with the performances that led up to and then followed the release of Starless and Bible Black on March 29, 1974. For those interested in this King Crimson incarnation, it's an essential piece of the puzzle that is all the better for it by also sporting the most consistently excellent sound of any live Crimson box to date...' --Allaboutjazz.com