[youtube SgK-Aopv-Pg]
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.)
Apologies for posting this so out of season, but I just came across it while randomly flipping (Fripping?) through 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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