The Emperor's New Clothes or a touch of genius? As with many Fripp-related projects, the two are not mutually exclusive. Keeling apparently first wrote to Fripp in 1970 while still a schoolboy, and was asked by the great man to arrange a piece. Forty odd years later, they're at it again, with the release of Keeling's arrangements for Fripp's Soundscapes. Except of course this recording takes the music further in that this is David Singleton's soundscape-ish production of the original recording; so there's a whole other veneer of musicality that glows throughout this extraordinary recording. Superficially, to arrange Fripp's gossamer light improvisationsfor orchestra seems to over-egg a music that's prime virtue is its airy insubstantiality (though the music has great substance). As the soundscapes were also recorded in churches, there's another sonic realm that needs accounting for. On one level, Keeling blithely ignores the genesis of the pieces – that's just a kicking off point for his own ideas (which is probably what appeals to Fripp about this collaboration). Keeling's voice revolves around re-pitching the Fripperies within a contemporary, sacred, classical vibe – Pärt's transparency and notably Ligeti's scary choral effects resonate hugely, in keeping with Terje Rypdal's string and guitar meditations visited a decade ago. Yet there's something deeply English at work here; for all the strings, The Wine Of Silence feeds back to the great English choral tradition, notably Tallis and the wonders of Spem In Alium before spinning and whirling back to us via Vaughan Williams and Holst's ‘Neptune’. Some Emperor. Some clothes. Everything and nothing.