“Lizard” – King Crimson’s third studio album & second recording of 1970, was, like its predecessor “In the Wake of Poseidon”, the product of a studio band. It was also the first Crimson album for which Robert Fripp provided all of the music. Remarkably self-contained & sounding somewhat atypical for a King Crimson album – even by the standards of a band that rarely sounded similar from album to album, “Lizard” is an often overlooked & under-appreciated gem from their early years. Certainly at the time of release, anyone expecting an extension of the soundscapes introduced & explored on the band’s earlier two albums was in for a surprise.

“Lizard” featured a lighter, more delicate sound than the earlier albums – an approach perhaps necessitated by an extended instrumental lineup. The expanded range of instruments allowed for intricately interwoven instrumental passages – with Fripp’s guitar & Tippett’s piano pleasingly to the fore – and this combination, along with the prominence afforded to Mel Collins & the guest players on the album’s main title suite, led some to believe that Fripp was guiding Crimson towards the world of jazz & away from rock altogether. But such claims were misguided. Crimson was, as ever, seeking to expand the vocabulary of rock music & “Lizard” was, in some ways, the band’s most ambitious album to date.

As this lineup never toured, very little of the material was performed live & “Lizard” remained a product of the studio environment & the musicians who performed on it. Lizard’s standalone nature makes it difficult even to compile in context next to Crimson’s other material – with only “Bolero” featuring on the box sets covering Crimson’s extensive history. “Lizard” remains a fascinating, intriguing album – an album only a band called King Crimson could make – even if it was a very different King Crimson to that which had gone before or would come after.  

Now completely remixed from the original multitrack recording tapes by Steven Wilson for 5.1 Surround Sound & featuring a new stereo mix from the same source tapes by Robert Fripp & Steven Wilson, Lizard finally reveals its true beauty. As Steven Wilson put it: “I’ve always felt that if presented in the right way, I could make a case for this being the most experimental rock record ever made. It’s extraordinary what they’re doing on this album. In terms of fusing free-jazz with progressive rock for me there’s almost no parallel.

Disc 2 - DVD:
PART I
1. Cirkus
2. Indoor Games
3. Happy Family
4. Lady of the Dancing Water
5. Lizard

5.1 Surround Sound mixes available in DTS 5.1 (playable in all DVD players/
DVD-Rom drives etc. with a compatible speaker setup) & MLP Lossless Audio (DVD-A players only).

All 5.1 tracks mixed & produced by Steven Wilson, Executive producer: Robert Fripp

PART II
24/48 High Resolution Stereo mixes of full CD audio content (playable in all DVD players/DVD-Rom drives etc.) & 24/96 High Resolution Stereo mixes (DVD-A players only).

PART III
Original album mix, 2004 Remaster
1. Cirkus
2. Indoor Games
3. Happy Family
4. Lady of the Dancing Water
5. Lizard

24/48 High Resolution Stereo (playable in all DVD players/DVD-Rom drives etc.) & 24/96 High Resolution Stereo (DVD-A players only).

DVD-A mastered & assembled by Neil Wilkes at Opus Productions, London.