(No Pussyfooting)

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Untitled

(No Pussyfooting) is a 1973 ambient music[1] album by the British musicians Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. (No Pussyfooting) was the first of three major collaborations between the musicians, growing out of Eno's early tape recording experiments and Fripp's ability to input music with an electric guitar.

(No Pussyfooting) was recorded in three days over a period of a year. It was released very closely to Eno's own debut solo album Here Come the Warm Jets (1974) and is considered to be one of his early experiments in ambient music.

Production

Brian Eno invited Robert Fripp to his London home studio in September 1972. Eno had developed a tape system using two tape recorders set up so when a sound was played, it would be heard at a lower volume level seconds later, and seconds later again at a lower level. With this method, new sounds could be laid upon each other without overwriting them. Fripp played further material over the top with Eno selectively enabling or disabling the recording. This allowed Eno to remove portions of the loop, or add further new layers on top of the existing material. The result is a dense, multi-layered piece of ambient music.[3][4] This technique later came to be known as "Frippertronics".

(No Pussyfooting) 's first track is a near 21-minute piece titled "The Heavenly Music Corporation". Fripp originally wanted the track titled "The Transcendental Music Corporation", which Eno didn't allow as he feared it would make people "think [they were] serious".[5] Recorded in two takes — first the background looping track, then adding an extended guitar solo over the backing track — the track features the sole sound source as Fripp's electric guitar, played through a tape loop system devised by Eno determining the amount of the time in which each piece of audio would be layered.[4]

The second track "Swastika Girls" was recorded almost a year after "The Heavenly Music Corporation" in August 1973 at Command Studios in London. The track's title refers to an image of nude women doing a nazi salute that was ripped out of a pornographic film magazine that Eno found left in Air studios. Eno stuck the image on the recording console while recording the track with Fripp and it became the title of the track. "Swastika Girls" uses the same technique as "The Heavenly Music Corporation".[6] Fripp and Eno took the tapes of "Swastika Girls" to British record producer George Martin's Air Studios at Oxford Circus to continue mixing and assembling the track there.[7]

Release and reception

(No Pussyfooting) was released in November 1973 and failed to chart on either the American or British charts.[1] (No Pussyfooting) was met with negative reaction from their record label, Island Records, who were actively opposed to it.[7][8] The album was released in the same year as Eno's more rock-based solo album Here Come the Warm Jets. Eno was attempting to launch a solo career, having just left Roxy Music, and his management bemoaned the confusion caused by the release of two albums with such different styles.[9] Robert Fripp's bandmates in King Crimson also disliked the album.[7] Mainstream rock press also didn't pay much attention to the album compared to Fripp's work with King Crimson, or Eno's solo albums.[9] In the UK, the album was released at a large discount compared to normal album prices[10] and was regarded as something of a musical aside. In 1975, Robert Christgau the music critic for The Village Voice gave the album a B+ rating calling the album "the most enjoyable pop electronics since Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air" and that it was "...more visionary and more romantic than James Taylor could dream of being."[11]

In 1982 the album was re-released on vinyl and in 1987 on compact disc by EG Records.[1] Modern reception has been mostly positive. Ted Mills of the music database Allmusic gave the album four and a half stars out of five praising the track "Heavenly Music Corporation", noting "the beauty" of their tape deck setup, but giving a negative view on the following track "Swastika Girls" stating that the loop system was abused with "too many disconnected sounds sharing the space, some discordant, some melodic, the resulting work lacks form and structure".[1] Eric Tamm, the author of Eno biography Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound (1995) has similar reaction to Mills, stating that "The Heavenly Music Corporation" " anticipated Eno's own ambient style.[6] Tamm also noted that on "Swastika Girls" that "if it is less successful than the earlier piece, it is because of the much greater overall saturation of the acoustical space...There seems to be a perceptual rule that possibilities for appreciation of timbral subtleties decrease in proportion to the rate of actual notes being played..."Swastika Girls" shows that Eno and Fripp had not yet understood the full weight of this principle".[6]

In modern reviews of Fripp & Eno's album The Equatorial Stars (2004), critics have mentioned (No Pussyfooting) in positive light. Peter Marsh for the BBC's experimental music review referred to the album as "now one of those albums that's spoken about in hushed, reverential tones as a proto-ambient classic".[8] Dominique Leone of the music webzine Pitchfork Media referred noted that "to [Fripp's] and Eno's credit, it didn't really sound like anything that had come before it".[12]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp

No.TitleLength
1."The Heavenly Music Corporation"20:55
2."Swastika Girls"18:43

Remastered edition (2008)

The double CD remastered edition adds variations to the track list:

No.TitleLength
3."The Heavenly Music Corporation (reversed)"20:52
4."The Heavenly Music Corporation (half speed)"41:49
5."Swastika Girls (reversed)"18:54

24 bit remaster by Simon Heyworth and Robert Fripp.

Personnel

Release history

Region Date Label Format Catalog
United Kingdom November, 1973 Island Records LP HELP 16
United States Antilles Records 7001
United Kingdom 23 February 1987[13] EG Records CD EGCD 2
United States 31 August 1990[14]
United Kingdom 29 September 2008 Discipline Global Mobile 2CD DGM5007

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Mills, Ted. "allmusic ((( No Pussyfooting > Review )))". Allmusic. Retrieved 8 June 2008.
  2. ^ Weisbard & Marks, 1995. p.129
  3. ^ Tamm, 1995. pp.151
  4. ^ a b Tamm, 1995. pp.152
  5. ^ "Fripp and Eno No Pussyfooting Around". Hit Parader. Retrieved 8 June 2008.
  6. ^ a b c Tamm, 1995. pg.154
  7. ^ a b c "Robert Fripp's Diary for Tuesday, 25 September 2007". Robert Fripp. Retrieved 8 June 2008.
  8. ^ a b Marsh, Peter (5 July 2004). "BBC - Experimental Review - Fripp & Eno, The Equatorial Stars". BBC. Retrieved 8 June 2008.
  9. ^ a b Tamm, 1995. pp.156
  10. ^ Sheppard, David, On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno, Orion (1 May 2008) ISBN 978-0-7528-7570-5
  11. ^ Christgau, Robert. "Brian Eno/David Byrne [extended]". Village Voice. Retrieved 8 June 2008.
  12. ^ Leone, Domonique (6 August 2004). "Fripp & Eno: The Equatorial Stars: Pitchfork Record Review". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 8 June 2008.
  13. ^ Booth , Gene. "No Pussyfooting". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 5 August 2008.
  14. ^ Booth , Gene. "Amazon.com: No Pussyfooting". Amazon.com. Retrieved 5 August 2008.

References

External links

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