Fripp, Robert & Brian Eno: (No Pussyfooting) LP

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno's timeless 1973 electronic music classic No Pussyfooting on vinyl for the first time in nearly 30 years. The album's return to the 12" format is cut from masters approved by the artists, manufactured on 200g super-heavyweight vinyl and presented in a re-worked version of the original gatefold sleeve, using variant photos from the original photo shoot by Willie Christie. 

 

In August of 1972 King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp was producing some material for Robert Wyatt. Brian Eno (then a member of Roxy Music) came to the studio to add synth to the same sessions. Fripp & Eno found common cause. In September of the same year, Fripp brought his guitar and pedal board to Eno's home studio. Using Eno's twin tape recorder/loop method set-up Fripp provided two takes - one for the background guitar loop and one for the foreground solos with Eno selectively manipulating which signals were committed to the final tape. 

 

The 21 minutes piece of music that resulted, "The Heavenly Music Corporation" became one of the most significant and influential pieces of electronic music ever recorded. The other track on their debut album "Swastika Girls" was not recorded until over a year later in August 1973 - the track title inspired by a picture of girls wearing a swastika and little else that was pinned to the mixing console. 

 

Also pinned to the console was a piece of paper with the words No Pussyfooting - Fripp's reminder to both musicians that they should not compromise what they felt to be right or be deterred by the hostility to the project shown by management and record label alike (there was talk of Fripp leading Eno into 'un-commercial territory). The seminal No Pussyfooting was released in November 1973 and, astonishingly, went on to sell over 100,000 copies. This led to the duo's 1975 follow-up Evening Star.

 

With just two albums recorded at various point over a four year period, Fripp & Eno had established a rudimentary route map of some of music’s future possibilities. That they still sound so fresh and alive with potential is testament to the strength of the duo’s original ideas. Fripp & Eno would, individually and collectively, make significant recordings of electronic music in the coming decades, but many, many others would participate in the vast expansion of interest in electronic music that followed.

 

As starter points for a vast number of musicians, these albums are unparalleled, their influence only beginning to be fully understood and appreciated. Eno is credited with the claim that everyone who originally bought a Velvet Underground album subsequently formed a band. It’s no less valid to suggest that many of those involved in electronic music might not have been but for No Pussyfooting and Evening Star.