No Pussyfooting - Production

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 an even 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. This technique later came to be known as "Frippertronics".

(No Pussyfooting) 's first track, which fills one side, 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 serious". 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.

The second track "Swastika Girls", which fills the other side, was recorded almost a year after "The Heavenly Music Corporation" in August 1973 at Command Studios in London. The track employed the same technique as "The Heavenly Music Corporation". 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. The track's title refers to an image, of nude women performing a nazi salute, that was ripped from a discarded pornographic film magazine found by Eno at Air studios. Eno stuck the image on the recording console while recording the track with Fripp and it became the title of the track.