With the help of friends and best-selling artists including Fred Frith, Ivor Cutler and Pink Floyd's Nick Mason (who produced the album), Wyatt recorded most of the album shortly after his release from hospital. In July 1974, the album was released to great critical acclaim. Cutler's performance (reciting a semi-nonsensical narrative three quarters of the way through "Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road" and intoning the same poem in a flat baritone voice at the end of "Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road" to close the album) was singled out for its brilliance, which resulted in his being offered a three-album deal with Virgin Records.