The Crims have featured several eye-catching line-ups, but even their most one-eyed fan (that’ll be me then) would struggle to rave about the 1970-1972 line up. After the extraordinary first iteration imploded, bits of it contributed to In the Wake of Poseidon, while other quilt-work line-ups inhabited Lizard and Islands. The eternal struggle over bassists and vocalist plagued the band and Fripp increasingly found himself isolated. Jazzers may be intrigued by Keith Tippett’s presence as a default musical director, but even he couldn’t turn around this dinosaur. Which means out of all 27 discs boxed beautifully here, it’s the auditions and rehearsals CD that fascinates most. Not just because this was a band constantly juggling unlikely personnel, but because it allows us to hear Fripp unadorned, not playing for the public ear. At times surprisingly he’s obviously intrigued by McLaughlin’s Miles-sound; he’s not averse to even dropping into ‘So What’-styled chords. Longeurs, yes, but fascinating to hear ideas being thrown in, thrown together and, usually, thrown out. Otherwise, like all the Panegyric/DGM box sets, the notes are excellent, the flyers et al tell their story and, not by coincidence, with the current Crimson line-up covering a surprising amount of material from this era, some cuts (notably that gorgeous title-track) have a certain contemporary allure. Definitely a box for diehards, but for others it’s wondrous to meditate how the cosmos may have been different if Elton John hadn’t been paid off with £250 not to be in this band.