Former King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp recorded his version of “Silent Night” in 1979, a year which found him in new-wave New York City and re-emerging into music after some time off. Besides releasing his first solo album—the Eno-headed all-star art-rock session entitled Exposure—Fripp had dropped his unmistakable style into such milestones as Blondie’s “Fade Away and Radiate”, the Talking Heads’ “I Zimbra,” and the Roches’ debut album.

Using Frippertronics, the analog loop-delay system he’d developed in the early ‘70s using two reel-to-reel tape decks, Fripp takes the hymn through its first four bars—up to “all is bright”—before letting his high-register tone loops take over.

So instead of a didactic reaction to the tune and its traditions, Fripp simply implies an avoidance of Mother and Child, preferring instead to hover in the calm brightness of the evening.

Here are the hard stats on this one according to YouTuber ScootTheCat:

Originally released as a flexi-disc with the Chicago based Praxis Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3 December, 1979. It was also an aural Christmas card from EG Records. This recording is from the King Crimson “Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream” 5 track EPCD (1995).

 
Thanks, Steve Abbate!