Stick Men Return to King Crimson’s ‘THRAK’ Era With First Album in Decade

More than thirty years after THRAK dragged King Crimson toward a heavier, more mechanical sound, two players from that era are reconstructing its DNA. Stick Men — the trio of bassist/Chapman Stick icon Tony Levin, drummer Pat Mastelotto, and touch guitarist Markus Reuter — will release Let’s THRAK Again on September 4. It’s the group’s first studio album in over a decade and, as Robert Fripp has reportedly signed off on the project, it arrives with a clear line of descent.

The record isn’t a songbook of covers. Instead, the band rethinks the industrial precision and controlled chaos that defined the original 1995 double-trio line-up. The first preview, “Swimming in Tea,” gives Reuter his only vocal turn before Levin uncorks one of his trademark Stick runs. For followers of the form, the personnel alone sketches the architecture. Levin’s resume runs from Peter Gabriel to John Lennon and Pink Floyd; Mastelotto’s hybrid kit helped Crimson pivot into its late-’90s phase. Reuter, on his self-designed eight-string Touch Guitar, has spent years constructing a language around the trio’s sound.

The most deliberate choice, though, is structural. Let’s THRAK Again will appear as two separate listening experiences: “Reel One,” mixed by Stefano Castagna, and “Reel Two,” mixed by Fabio Trentini, each with different track sequences and sonic perspectives. “We didn’t just write 12 new compositions; we designed an entirely new sonic vocabulary for them,” the band explains. “Our audience listens deeply. They don’t just want to hear the notes; they want to understand the architecture of the sound.” The dual-mix approach is, by their account, a direct nod to the heavy, mechanical impact of the original THRAK era. It’s an acknowledgment that some music is meant to be scrutinized, not simply streamed.