Robert Fripp is a guitarist and composer. Best known as co-founder of the group King Crimson, and his outstanding work with artists such as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel and David Sylvian, he is one of the most innovative and consistently challenging musicians of his generation. The Wine of Silence is the first album to feature orchestral arrangements of the guitarist’s solo Soundscapes work. Since the early 1990s Fripp has utilised the latest in looping technology and digital effects to create a gradually unfolding, highly textured, expansive and overtly orchestral music. In 2003, UK based composer Andrew Keeling completed work on a series of detailed orchestral arrangements of pieces taken from Fripp’s solo performances which had been painstakingly transcribed by Bert Lams (California Guitar Trio). Receiving their live premiere in The Netherlands by the Metropole Orkest under the baton of Jan Stulen in 2003, the results evoke the works of Pärt, Górecki, Tavener and others in the ‘holy minimalist’ school of composition. Andrew Keeling’s sensitive and often startling orchestrations emphasise the reverie, passion and contemplation which is at the heart of Fripp’s Soundscapes. The Wine of Silence captures the spirit of the original performances reflecting the guitarist’s rich musicality. It encompasses passages of yearning melody, dramatic choral sequences and beautiful string motifs. While sometimes sombre and elegiac, Fripp’s music radiates a sense of hope, affirmation and resolution. With the tapes of the original Metropole Orkest performance subsequently treated by David Singleton - co-producer of all of Fripp’s Soundscapes recordings to date - The Wine Of Silence forms a sublime and often moving collection of contemporary orchestral music.
