I'm surprised this hasn't been put in the featured albums of King Crimson's live section. A shame, since this is a nice live document of the
Islands line-up, and with good sound to boot.
Not surprisingly, a lot of the material here was for the aforementioned album, presented as works-in-progress, especially where Peter Sinfield's lyrics are concerned. While not as good as their final versions, they're at least entertaining; "The Letters" and "Ladies Of The Road" arguably rock even harder than their studio counterparts, "Sailor's Tale" focuses more on Collin's flute playing and "Formentera Lady" is more stripped down, to the point that the bridge between this line-up and the Wetton-era doesn't seem so crazy.
For the oldies, "21st Century Schizoid Man" and "Pictures Of A City" rock as usual and "Cadence And Cascade" has a nice vocal treatment from Boz. The best of the lot has to go to "Cirkus", given a slower, more hypnotic feel.
The real catch of the set, however, is an extended improv where the boys show off material that would make up "Larks Tongues In Aspic, Part 1" and, to a lesser extent, "Lament". Unfortunately, it kind of drags a bit in the second half with the drum solo bit, but at least it nice to hear Sinfield filter it with VCS3. It wouldn't surprise me if Emerson, Lake & Palmer saw Crimson doing this at one their shows and got idea for the drum synths they used in "Toccata".
Kudos to Robert Fripp and the guys at DGM for finding and releasing this.