Even as this mega reissue was dropping through the letter box, Adrian Belew, who of course was not involved with these sessions, was thanking Bruford and Fripp (but sadly John Wetton was omitted) for this extraordinary music. Then he and Steve Vai, as part of the Beat project, launched into the wall of noise that is ‘Red’. Meanwhile, in an intimate jazz club on the other side of the pond, Bruford, supposedly retired, was cuing up a Charlie Parker song in a context that couldn’t be further from his arena filling days with King Crimson.

So, the power of the Red sessions thunders down through the decades. That opening cut and even more notably ‘Starless’ remain as iconic as when the trio, somewhat wearily after another exhausting US tour, first entered the studio. With Fripp taking a position of ‘radical neutrality’, i.e. having a mardy fit, Wetton and Bruford filled the vacuum with megalithic, locked down bass and drums that has never been emulated.

And now you can enjoy it all over again. And again. And again. Because of course this 50th anniversary pack comes with all the usual add ons: across 2 cds and 2 Blu-rays come multiple re-mixes of USA from over the decades, brand new re-mixes of the album, no less than 5 re-mixed bootleg performances and the ever-intriguing elemental and instrumental mixes. But whichever way you cut it, Red remains big, brutal and it’ll be around for a further 50 years yet. Like the Belew said, thank you guys.