No Pussyfooting
	Produced by Robert Fripp & Brian Eno
	Released on November 1973
	(no chart information)
	Find it at GEMM
2343 095 cover

No Pussyfooting marked the beginning of a very fruitful collaboration between King Crimson founder Robert Fripp and Roxy Music electronics whiz Brian Eno. There is some of King Crimson’s intensity to be found in Fripp’s guitar leads, but otherwise the side-long pieces on No Pussyfooting are antithetical to the exploits associated with the pair’s previous work. Using a system of tape loops that builds layers of sound by repeating the same snippets, Eno creates a dense and exotic backdrop of musical texture from which Fripp’s guitar emerges and into which it ultimately submerges. It’s an important record, if only because it signals the start of Brian Eno’s ambient experiments, which sought to create music that existed in a space simultaneously rather than follow the linear course most often associated with electronic music. The first piece, “The Heavenly Music Corporation,” actually dates from September 1972, and finds the pair invoking the sound of jets amidst soothing waves of electronics and Fripp’s otherworldy guitar. “Swastika Girls,” recorded one year later, expands the sonic palette to the strumming of taut strings and some buzzsaw guitar leads that compete against an undercurrent of soothing melody. No Pussyfooting remains an impressive musical manifesto, despite the fact that these sounds have been packaged more succinctly (Evening Star) and explored more fully (Discreet Music, Let the Power Fall) on subsequent efforts. Both sides offer an interesting musical mantra chant, but art rockers beware: only minimalists, ambients and trance fans need apply.

2343 095 back cover

TRACK LISTING

1. THE HEAVENLY MUSIC CORPORATION    (Robert Fripp & Brian Eno)
2. SWASTIKA GIRLS    (Robert Fripp & Brian Eno)

CREDITS

BRIAN ENO -- Modified Revox A77 Tape Recorder, VCS3 synthesizer with digital sequencer
ROBERT FRIPP -- Gibson Les Paul, The Fripp Pedalboard, Frizzbox
Ray Hendricksen -- engineer

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