''Thrak'' (stylised in all caps) is the eleventh studio album by the band

King Crimson King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experime ...

released in 1995 through

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...

. It was preceded by the

mini-album A mini-LP or mini-album is a short vinyl record album or LP, usually retailing at a lower price than an album that would be considered full-length. It is distinct from an EP due to containing more tracks and a slightly longer running length. A ...

Vrooom ''Vrooom'' (stylised as ''VROOOM'') is an EP by the band King Crimson, classified as a mini-album due to its length. It was released in 1994 as a companion to the subsequent full length album ''THRAK'' (1995). It is the first King Crimson rele ...

'' in 1994. It is their first full-length studio album since ''

Three of a Perfect Pair ''Three of a Perfect Pair'' is the tenth studio album by English band King Crimson, released in March 1984 by record label E.G. It is the final studio album to feature the quartet of Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Bill Bruford. Con ...

'' eleven years earlier, and the only full album to feature the "Double Trio" lineup of

Robert Fripp Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a session ...

Adrian Belew Robert Steven "Adrian" Belew (born December 23, 1949) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist primarily known as a guitarist and singer, he is noted for his unusual and impressionistic approach to ...

Tony Levin Anthony Frederick Levin (born June 6, 1946) is an American musician and composer, specializing in electric bass, Chapman Stick and upright bass. He also sings and plays synthesizer. Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson (since 198 ...

Trey Gunn Trey Gunn (born December 13, 1960) is an American musician, known for his membership in the progressive rock band King Crimson from 1994 to 2003, playing Warr Guitar and Chapman Stick. Biography A native Texan who now resides in Seattle, Washi ...

Bill Bruford William Scott Bruford (born 17 May 1949) is an English former drummer and percussionist who first gained prominence as a founding member of the progressive rock band Yes. After leaving Yes in 1972, Bruford spent the rest of the 1970s recording ...

and

Pat Mastelotto Lee Patrick Mastelotto (born September 10, 1955) is an American rock drummer and record producer. He has been a member of King Crimson, Stick Men, Mr. Mister and O.R.k., as well as working as a session drummer with XTC, The Pointer Sisters an ...

. It is also the last time all members from the ''

Discipline Discipline refers to rule following behavior, to regulate, order, control and authority. It may also refer to punishment. Discipline is used to create habits, routines, and automatic mechanisms such as blind obedience. It may be inflicted on ot ...

'' era would work together, the last new album to feature Bruford (who left in 1997), and the most recent studio album to feature Levin.

Recording

The album was recorded at

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

's Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire, U.K. with producer

David Bottrill David Bottrill is a Canadian record producer. He has won three Grammys. Formerly, he owned Rattlebox Studios in Toronto, Ontario with producer Brian Moncarz. Moneen, Basia Lyjak, and The Getaway Plan are among the artists to have recorded at th ...

. Bottrill previously produced '' The First Day'', a collaborative album between Fripp and

David Sylvian David Sylvian (born David Alan Batt, 23 February 1958) is an English musician, singer and songwriter who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman and principal songwriter of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly ...

that featured Mastelotto as a session player. The recording presents the group in a series of unique ways: with the band consisting of two guitarists, two bassists and two drummers, the opening track begins with all six musicians in the center of the audio mix. As the album progresses, they are split into two trios, with one guitarist, bassist and drummer heard in the left channel and the other guitarist, bassist and drummer heard coming from the right channel. "Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream" and "One Time" were developed at studio rehearsals for the 1994 ''

'' mini-album in

Woodstock, New York Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, NY. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 in 2000 ...

during April and May 1994, shortly after the reformation of King Crimson. Instrumental outtakes and improvisations from these sessions would later be released as ''

The Vrooom Sessions ''The VROOOM Sessions'' is an album of instrumental outtakes recorded by King Crimson as studio improvisations during the rehearsals for the recording sessions of their 1994 comeback EP ''Vrooom''. These were the first studio recordings made by ...

'' in 1999. "Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream" developed from the instrumental outtake "No Questions Asked", with a riff that differs significantly from the finished song later recorded at Real World Studios. "Fashionable" was another instrumental from ''The Vrooom Sessions'' that was re-recorded at Real World Studios during the recording of ''Thrak''. It features a guitar line reminiscent of

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

's "Fashion", on which Fripp played in 1980. Despite being reworked with various additions and refinements by the band members, the upbeat piece ended up being dropped off the final album. "Vrooom Vrooom" incorporates a middle section originally composed by Fripp in 1974 for ''

Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

''’s instrumental title track (which is actually a rhythmical variation of ''Reds original middle section). The band also experimented with said section in 1983, while working on ''

''; evidence of this is the track "Working on Sleepless" from the 2016 compilation ''

Rehearsals & Blows ''Rehearsals & Blows'' is an album of studio sessions and rehearsals by the band King Crimson, released through the King Crimson Collectors' Club in January 2016. As with '' The Champaign-Urbana Sessions'', this album shows the development of mat ...

''.

Release

First released on 3 April 1995, ''THRAK'' reached number 58 in the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

, their last release to chart. The album was reissued on CD in 2002 in a remastered edition. A significantly different 5.1 surround sound mix by

Jakko Jakszyk Michael "Jakko" Jakszyk (born Michael Lee Curran, 8 June 1958) is an English musician, record producer, and actor. He has released several solo albums as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist and has been the lead singer for King Crims ...

was released as a CD/DVD-A release in October 2015 for the “40th Anniversary Series”. This edition also featured a reimagined new stereo mix by

and Jakszyk. These two mixes were also included in the '' THRAK BOX'', that also included previously unissued studio and live recordings from the 1994-1997 period.

Reception

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to ...

'' described it as "an absolute monster, a cerebral sextet adventure stunning in its precisely controlled rock power."

Track listing

Personnel

;King Crimson *

–

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

soundscapes A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in context. The term was originally coined by Michael Southworth, and popularised by R. Murray Schafer. There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline, ...

– electric and acoustic guitars, lead vocals *

–

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

Chapman Stick The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines, ...

electric upright bass The electric upright bass (EUB) is an instrument that can perform the musical function of a double bass. It requires only a minimal or 'skeleton' body to produce sound because it uses a pickup and electronic amplifier and loudspeaker. Therefore, ...

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, percussion *

–

Warr guitar The Warr Guitar is an American-made touch guitar, a type of instrument that combines both bass and melodic strings on a single fretboard. It is related to the Chapman Stick, another two-handed tapping instrument. The Warr guitar is designed for ...

, backing vocals *

– drums,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

; Technical *

– production, recording

Chart performance

References

External links

King Crimson - ''THRAK'' (1995) album releases & credits
at

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King Crimson - ''THRAK'' (1995) album to be listened
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King Crimson - ''THRAK'' (1995) album to be listened
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{{Authority control 1995 albums King Crimson albums Albums produced by David Bottrill Virgin Records albums