Produced by Robert Fripp under the musical direction of Keith Tippett, it was originally released 1971 in the UK as a double LP, and 1974 in the US with a different cover.

Septober Energy - Part 4 is based on the instrumental track Green and Orange Night Park that was part of The Keith Tippett Group's 1970 album Dedicated To You, But You Weren't Listening.

Another version, titled Septober Energy and including vocals, can be found on the album The Bristol Concert by Mujician and The Georgian Ensemble, recorded 1991.

Writing in the sleeve notes, Robert Wyatt said: "Of course I can't tell you anything about this music, because that would be silly, and I can't examine publicly Keith's murky motives for dreaming up this insane travelling circus known as 'Centipede'.

If I were to talk about how Fripp coped with the unprecedented production problems in such a short space of time, I'd be wasting yours, because the job's done now and I never really understood the technical details anyway.