Music performed and composed by Robert Fripp & Brian Eno.

The short version: In August 1972 King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp was producing some material for Robert Wyatt. Brian Eno – then a member of Roxy Music, came to the studio to add synth to the same sessions. Fripp & Eno found common cause. On September 8th 1972, Robert Fripp brought his guitar and pedal board to Brian Eno’s home studio.

Using Eno’s twin tape recorder/loop method setup Fripp provided two takes – one for the background guitar loop and one for the foreground solos with Eno selectively manipulating which signals were committed to the final tape. The 21 minutes piece of music that resulted, “The Heavenly Music Corporation” became one of the most significant and influential pieces of electronic music ever recorded and side one of an album.

The other piece on the album, “Swastika Girls”, was not recorded until nearly a year later in August 1973 – the track title inspired by a picture of girls wearing a swastika and little else that was pinned to the console. Also pinned to the console was a piece of paper with the words “No Pussyfooting” – Fripp’s reminder to both musicians that they should not compromise what they felt to be right or be deterred by the hostility to the project shown by management and record label alike. (There was talk of Fripp leading Eno into “un-commercial territory”.)

The album was released in November 1973 and went on to sell over 100,000 copies. It was a unique achievement at the time to place an album of experimental electronic music into the hands, homes and ears of 100,000 rock music fans.

Long regarded as a seminal recording it has reached many more pairs of ears in the decades since. Even in a world where electronic music has become commonplace and after more than half a century, the album maintains both its aura of mystery and the sense of musical curiosity that was essential to its origin.