Singer / songwriter Roy Harper came upon the mid-1960s London folk scene alongside the likes of Jackson C Frank, Sandy Denny, et al., and his 1970 album, Flat Baroque and Berserk, was the final installment of his initial folkie phase. With his next release, the rapturously received Stormcock, he would incorporate expansive prog-rock flavouring into his style, but Flat Baroque and Berserk is a sparse, acoustic-based effort that focuses squarely on Harper's poetic lyrics and (at that point) Dylanesque tunes. He's backed here by Keith Emerson's pre-ELP outfit, the Nice, offering a slight foreshadowing of things to come, but progressive epics were not yet a part of Harper's approach. The album was recorded principally at Abbey Road Studios, London in September 1969.