A unique team-up between two celebrated guitarists - Andy Summers of The Police and Robert Fripp of King Crimson - will be revisited this spring with a bevy of new material.

The Complete Recordings 1981-1984 will expand and remaster the duo's two studio albums together - 1982's I Advance Masked and 1984's Bewitched - along with Mother Hold the Candle Steady, a newly-created album of outtakes from their sessions together. The Blu-ray Audio will include hi-resolution remasters of both albums, new remixes, and "Can We Record Tony?" - an audio documentary created from Fripp's archival cassettes of the pair's earliest improvisations together. Liner notes by Crimson biographer Sid Smith will feature new quotes from the guitarists about their work, as well as insight from Fripp's longtime engineer David Singleton on not only remixing the original albums but finding and mixing the outtakes.

While the guitarist for the world's rapidly-ascending most popular rock band and the driving force behind one of British progressive rock's most defining acts might have seemed like strange bedfellows to the MTV generation, Summers' and Fripp's fates were intertwined long before The Police or King Crimson took their first bows. The pair first met in Bournemouth, where Summers grew up and Fripp attended school. Fripp's first major musical project, the Majestic Jazz Orchestra, would secure a regular gig at the local Majestic Hotel - a replacement after the Zoot Money Big Roll Band, who gave Summers his first break as a guitarist, moved to London. The pair stayed friends as Fripp formed King Crimson (and then went on hiatus in the mid-to-late '70s) and Summers joined up with American drummer Stewart Copeland and a talented ex-jazz bassist who called himself Sting to form a post-punk trio that took Europe, the East and finally America by storm.

The sessions that would become I Advance Masked occurred as Fripp - who'd recorded notable collaborations with David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Daryl Hall and Talking Heads - was in the process of reforming King Crimson and Summers completed work on The Police's New Wave-influenced fourth album Ghost in the Machine. Summers later called it "a synthesis of two guys who grew up playing guitar, heard The Beatles, listened to jazz, have been influenced by Oriental music and Steve Reich, but still happen to be playing in a rock context." The duo performed every sound on the album, augmenting their instrumental guitar work with bass, synthesizers and percussion. The ambient nature of I Advance Masked contrasted with the more straightforward instrumental pop/rock of follow-up Bewitched, a slightly more synthesized affair (with a fuller backing band) recorded and released shortly after The Police's Synchronicity Tour. ("The album is a lot more Andrew than it is me," Fripp later said.)

The baker's dozen of unreleased recordings on Mother Hold the Candle Steady were found by Summers on four tape reels in Los Angeles during early plans to remaster and reissue the original albums. Singleton mixed these new outtakes for release along with new stereo and 5.1 surround versions, and also helped assemble "Can We Record Tony?" - referring to Tony Arnold, in-house engineer and owner of Arny's Shack in Dorset where most of the sessions for both albums took place. (The collage is excerpted on the CD and presented in full on the Blu-ray.) Singleton's new stereo mix of I Advance Masked will also be released on 200-gram vinyl, cut by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering and featuring two bonus tracks from Mother Hold the Candle Steady.

The 3CD/1BD set, housed in a 10-panel, book-sized digisleeve with a 16-page booklet, will be available from DGM/Panegyric on March 28. Amazon links are still populating as of press time, but are included below. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

The Complete Recordings 1981-1984 (DGM/Panegyric DGMXP110, 2025) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1: I Advance Masked (released A&M Records SP-4913, 1981) and bonus material (* previously unreleased)

1. I Advance Masked
2. Under Bridges of Silence
3. China - Yellow Leader
4. In the Cloud Forest
5. New Marimba
6. Girl on a Swing
7. Hardy Country
8. The Truth of Skies
9. Painting and Dance
10. Still Point
11. Lakeland/Aquarelle
12. Seven on Seven
13. Stultified
14. Brainstorm *
15. New Marimba (Early Mix) *
16. Balinese *
17. Seven on Seven (Reprise) *

CD 2: Bewitched (released as A&M Records SP-5011, 1984) and bonus material (* previously unreleased)

1. Parade
2. What Kind of Man Reads Playboy
3. Begin the Day
4. Train
5. Bewitched
6. Tribe
7. Maquillage
8. Guide
9. Forgotten Steps
10. Image and Likeness
11. Tribe (Original Version) *
12. Maquillage (Alt Original Mix) *

CD 3: Mother Hold the Candle Steady (previously unreleased)

1. Impudent Prelude
2. Brainstorm
3. Tremors
4. Turkish Kitchen
5. Skyline
6. Foi Um Optimo Dia
7. San Antonio Blues
8. Mother Hold the Candle Steady
9. Entropy Pulse
10. Ninja Acid Dance
11. Step N' Fetchit
12. Maquillage II
13. Parade II
14. Can We Record Tony? (Edit)

Blu-ray Audio

• I Advance Masked - new and original 24/96 kHz stereo mixes and new DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround mix
• Bewitched - new and original 24/96 kHz stereo mixes and new DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround mix
• Mother Hold the Candle Steady - 24/96 kHz stereo and surround/DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround mixes
• Can We Record Tony? (Complete)

I Advance Masked (2024 David Singleton Mix) (DGM/Panegyric DGMLP10, 2025) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Side A

1. I Advance Masked
2. Under Bridges of Silence
3. China - Yellow Leader
4. In the Cloud Forest
5. New Marimba
6. Girl on a Swing

Side B

1. Hardy Country
2. The Truth of Skies
3. Painting and Dance
4. Still Point
5. Lakeland/Aquarelle
6. Seven on Seven
7. Stultified
8. Entropy Pulse *
9. Skyline *