(No Pussyfooting)
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| (No Pussyfooting) | |||||
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| Studio album by Fripp & Eno | |||||
| Released | November, 1973 | ||||
| Recorded | September 8, 1972 & August 4-5, 1973 | ||||
| Genre | Ambient, experimental | ||||
| Length | 39:38 | ||||
| Label | Island | ||||
| Producer | Robert Fripp, Brian Eno | ||||
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Robert Christgau (B+)
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| Fripp & Eno chronology | |||||
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(No Pussyfooting) is a 1973 experimental music 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 two years. It was released very closely to Eno's own solo album Here Come the Warm Jets (1973) and is considered to be one of his early experiments in ambient music.
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[edit] Production
Brian Eno invited Robert Fripp to his London home studio in September of 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 layed upon each other with out overwriting them. Fripp played further material over the top while 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 experimental ambient music.[3][4]
(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 afraid it would make people "think [they were] serious".[5] Recorded in one take, the track features the sole sound source as Fripp's electric guitar, played through a tape loop system devised by Eno determing the amount of the time in which each piece of audio would be layered.[4]
The second track "Swastika Girls" was recorded in almost a year after "The Heavenly Music Corporation" in August of 1973 at Command Studios in London. The tracks 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]
[edit] Release and reception
(No Pussyfooting) was released in November of 1973 and failed to chart on either the American or British charts.[1] (No Pussyfooting) was met with negative reation to their record label, Island Records, who were actively opposed to it.[7][8] The album was released in the same year as the Eno's more rock music based solo album Here Come the Warm Jets (1973) that caused confusion in Eno's image to the public, which upset Eno's managers.[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 as much as Fripp's work with King Crimson, or Eno's solo albums.[9] 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."[2]
In 1987, the album was re-released 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 refered to the album as "now one of those albums that's spoken about in hushed, reverential tones as a proto-ambient classic".[8] Domonique Leon of the music webzine Pitchfork Media refered noted that "to [Fripp's] and Eno's credit, it didn't really sound like anything that had come before it".[10]
[edit] Track listing
All songs written and composed by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp.
| # | Title | Length |
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| 1. | "The Heavenly Music Corporation" | 20:55 |
| 2. | "Swastika Girls" | 18:43 |
[edit] Personnel
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[edit] Technical personnel
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[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d Mills, Ted. allmusic ((( No Pussyfooting > Review ))). Allmusic. Retrieved on 2008-06-08.
- ^ a b Christgau, Robert. Brian Eno/David Byrne [extended]. Village Voice. Retrieved on 2008-06-08.
- ^ Tamm, 1995. pp.151
- ^ a b Tamm, 1995. pp.152
- ^ [http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/interviews/hitpa74b.html Fripp and Eno No Pussyfooting Around]. Hit Parader. Retrieved on 2008-06-08.
- ^ a b c Tamm, 1995. pg.154
- ^ a b c Robert Fripp's Diary for Tuesday, 25th September 2007. Robert Fripp. Retrieved on 2008-06-08.
- ^ a b Marsh, Peter (July 5, 2004). BBC - Experimental Review - Fripp & Eno, The Equatorial Stars. BBC. Retrieved on 2008-06-08.
- ^ a b Tamm, 1995. pp.156
- ^ Leone, Domonique (August 06, 2004). Fripp & Eno: The Equatorial Stars: Pitchfork Record Review. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2008-06-08.
[edit] References
- Tamm, Eric (1995). Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306806495.
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