Ed Driscoll

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Have a Merry Frippertronic Christmas!

December 22, 2010 - 1:45 pm - by Ed Driscoll

If the Krell from Forbidden Planet, or the civilization just offscreen that built the monoliths in 2001 celebrate Christmas, this has to be one of their more festive numbers. It’s “Silent Night” performed by Robert Fripp of King Crimson, using his “Frippertronics” technique of tape loops, and a Les Paul Custom run through a fuzz box with all of the treble rolled off the guitar, for a sine wave-style analog synthesizer sound. (No wonder he and Adrian Belew loved their Roland guitar synthesizers in the early 1980s incarnation of King Crimson — Fripp was playing with a similar sound several years before Roland bundled it as a preset.)

I posted this back in July when I stumbled over it via the Truveo video search engine, and thought it was a hoot — Mike Meyers’ old “Sprockets” sketch from the Saturday Night Live of 20 years ago could have had lots of fun with this as well:

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And for those who’d like to bring similar sounds home for the holidays, why not turn your Xbox into the perfect video Theremin interface?

Filed under: All You Need Is Ears, Bobos In Paradise, From Bauhaus To Our House, The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name

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1 Comments, 1 Threads

  1. 1. Gaffe Price

    Most Impressive. I’m particularly familar w/ Fripp/Sinfield/K.Crimson myself. Find out about historical references in Sinfield’s oeuvre at songsouponsea.com

    And happiness to you and your family this holiday season. I’ll try to express in words how great this blog is (especially within the context of other great PJ blogs) sometime before the New Years Holiday. Thanks for all you do Outstanding blogwork. Keen and resounding wit. Picks me up when I’m feeling blue.

    December 23, 2010 - 10:55 am   Link to this Comment