Robert Fripp has confirmed King Crimson will return next year, as a long-running dispute with a record label nears its solution.

In 2009 he decided to call a halt to the band’s proceedings because he felt he couldn’t concentrate on creating new music while working through legal wrangles.

Now a change of regime at Universal Music Group has meant those business issues are close to being put in the past – and that means Fripp is able to look to the future of the band he founded in 1968.

Writing in his online diary, he says: “King Crimson is in motion. This is a very different reformation to what has gone before: seven players, four English and three American, with three drummers.

“The seven-headed beast of Crim is in Go! mode.”

Last year he explained his situation by saying: “I couldn’t concentrate on music, so I made the choice to give up my career as a musician in the frontline to deal with the business.

“Going back to early King Crimson, the remarkable explosion of the creative impulse came from these young men who didn’t know what they were doing, yet were able to do it. What has changed in 40 years? It’s very simple: 40 years ago there was a market economy. Today there is a market society – today everything, including ethics, has a price.”

The new incarnation of the prog rock icons will start work in 2014, but he says they’re not planning to tour extensively. The eighth incarnation of the band will feature Gavin Harrison, Bill Rieflin, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Mel Collins and Jakko Jakszyk. Crimson are poised to release a 24-disc live box set called The Road To Red, which also includes a new mix of 1974 album Red produced by Fripp and Steven Wilson. It’s available for pre-order now.

(via Classic Rock Magazine)

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