"You are a prisoner of your age" runs one of the lyrics in Why Don't You Just Drop In, a song that appears in two different versions on this album. It would be easy to say that it's a line that's applicable to the album itself. Certainly there's a 1968 trippy kitsch thread that runs through several of the arrangements and lyrics. And no surprise, therefore, that it was a 'featured album' on an episode of the Freakzone a year ago, since that programme likes to meet its music with one eyebrow arched and headgear at a rakish angle.
At the same time there are the signs of a shifting ensemble (GG&F are joined on several tracks by Ian MacDonald and Judy Dyble) trying out many different styles in a short space of time. So you get songs like Digging My Lawn, sounding like the Syd-Barrett-Floyd of Bike, right next to Tremelo Study in A Major (Spanish Suite), which is a rather more sober solo guitar piece that prefigures Fripp's later Guitar Craft exploits. Within a few months, they'd changed again — into King Crimson.
I always think of this album when I pass Brondesbury station on the way to The Luminaire. It takes its name from 93a Brondesbury Road where GG&F were living at the time. They recorded these tapes in their front room on a two-track machine, using track-bouncing techniques that were very advanced for their time. Sophisticated home recording on a budget is easy these days, but I think this was almost unprecedented (except by Joe Meek, perhaps), and most say that the results are better than The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp, their only 'official' album at the time.
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