Fripp & Eno 1: No Pussyfooting

In 1972, on breaks from their respective bands, Robert Fripp brought his guitar and pedals over to Brian Eno’s house to see what kind of music they could make. Eno showed Fripp his technique of looping live music in real-time via two tape recorders. Fripp played with himself, so to speak, on a piece eventually dubbed “The Heavenly Music Corporation”, and thus, Frippertronics was born.

A year later, they met up again at an actual studio with the same brief. This time Eno manipulated his VCS3 synthesizer for Fripp’s fretting benefit, and called the result “Swastika Girls”. The completed works, equal to two sides of an LP, were released as (No Pussyfooting).

While the genesis of this project may sound a lot like how John & Yoko’s Two Virgins came about, the difference is that both Fripp and Eno were much more adept at making something musical come out of tape experiments, and their project certainly would not have gone further than their own ears had it not possessed any musical value. Indeed, one of the most striking things about (No Pussyfooting) is how it manages to sound different with every listen.

As a tribute to its notorious BBC radio debut, where the album was played off reel-to-reel tape threaded backwards, the double-CD reissue includes bonuses of a sort. In addition to being separated into indexed sections for “easier access”, both pieces are presented in reverse, and “Heavenly Music” also appears a third time at half-speed. Only those familiar with the music would otherwise know which was which given a sampling.

Fripp & Eno (No Pussyfooting) (1973)—3
2008 CD reissue: same as 1973, plus 3 extra tracks