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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk
Originally conceived as "a series of recordings based on an imaginary culture", My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts finds Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and studio egghead Brian Eno marking time between 1979’s Fear Of Music and the following year’s Remain In Light with a machetes-out excursion into the dense, unexplored ethnic wilderness. Recorded with a cast of virtuoso players that includes bassist Bill Laswell and New York percussionist David Van Tieghem, it’s an album that blurs the boundaries between African rhythms and the electronic avant-garde, a feat made possible thanks to Eno’s cutting-edge studio tool – the sampler. It’s this equipment that provides the "voice" of the record. A series of disembodied voices, in fact - Arabian singers, raging US talk-show hosts, Christian preacher men, field recordings – not just dropped into the music but immersed in it, until it’s impossible to sense the join. Stiffly funky and reliant on electronics, it’s a defiantly modern record, which paradoxically, dates it somewhat next to Byrne’s next work, Talking Heads’ immortal Remain In Light. It remains a fascinating milestone in experimentation, however, its foundation loosing a tremor that can still be heard in everything from Moby’s Play to the teeming ranks of modern hip-hop.--Louis Pattison
Review
When My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts was released in February 1981, it was the last in David Byrne and Brian Eno's 'African trilogy'. Its influence remains simply enormous: echoes of this record can be heard throughout modern music, from the obvious sound collages of Public Enemy and DJ Shadow to, even, the clever and dense production references of pop acts such as Girls Aloud.
"The Jezebel Spirit", "Help Me Somebody" and "Regiment" remain the triumvirate of tracks on which this reputation rests, typifying this groundbreaking montage of beats, scratches, itches and glitches. You would still be hard pushed to find a denser, knottier funk with disembodied voices weaving in and out. Given the painstaking process of assemblage involved and the cerebral nature of the subject matter, it remains a very warm and inclusive record, largely due to the fact that cream of avant pop assembled and created a sweetly bubbling musical stew to support all the theory.
My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts is the record that gave the world 'found voices' and signposted the way for producers to become 'curators'. No matter how many subsequent sins have been created in curating found voices for art's sake, this record in its lavish 25th Anniversary finery with seven bonus tracks remains the definitive article. --Daryl Easlea
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By nicjaytee
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Audio CD
Few records can justifiably claim to be "groundbreaking", but here's one - a mesmerising example of two highly creative musicians at the peak of their powers pushing their ideas out to the edge. Using the infectious poly-rhythms and jerky, high tension riffs & vocals that permeated their brilliantly successful collaboration on Talking Heads' "Remain in Light" as their starting point, they mix-in ingenious looped samples and insidious guitar, synthesizer & percussion back-beats to produce something completely unique. Not only like nothing else around at the time but, like all truly great albums, one that hasn't aged with time. Often sounding more like an inventive slice of modern "electronica/dance" it's almost impossible to believe that it was produced 25 years ago... and, of course, a great deal of what's followed since can be traced back to this amazing record.
Darker and far more "left-field" than "Remain in Light", "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" is no easy listen, but with repeat playing it becomes equally addictive... a worthy successor and a wholly successful exploration of just how far Brian Eno's & David Byrne's complex fusions of electronica & rock could be taken. File under "essential, timeless and under-rated slice of musical genius".
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is less a review than a correction to the Amazon review. The line abou Eno having a sampler was bugging me as I was sure that that wasn't the case. Sure enough, a quick scan of the album notes revealed that Eno and Byrne did it all with tape, making it all the more of an achievement. I guess only anoraks like me will care but what the hey. Whichever way you slice it, it's a great album. Also, anyone interested in this might also want to check out 'On The Way To The Peak Of Normal' by Holger Czukay, ex Can bassist. It was also made by manipulating tape and is, like 'Bush of Ghosts' a remarkable album.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Don Panik
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Audio CD
It's not often that a record enters your life and remains part of it. This is one of those records for me. Having been a Roxy Music fan and digging Eno's solo work I well remember the excitement of getting this record home when it was originally released. I can't remember now if I liked it straight away - but I do recall the way that those sampled voices entered my consciousness and stayed there. The idea of an exorcism being set to music was pretty unusual then (and not that common now!) I always saw this as more Eno than David Byrne, and my favourite Talking Heads albums were the ones that Eno produced. Whatever, this was a staggering record at the time and has held up pretty well over the years. Good to see it in expanded form and sounding good. Having owned it on vinyl, cassette, CD and now this version, I obviously like this record.
Wish they would make another record - oh look they just might have!
Wish they would make another record - oh look they just might have!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
LANDMARK
Landmark album of infectious grooves; using vocal samples extracted and manipulated from cultures across the world, textural and percussive tracks take the recording into a lower... Read more
Published 2 months ago by TUBEWAY
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ghosts in the Bush Revisted - But No Listed Voices
Have to say being a long-term fan of this album that it is pretty much flawless - and having got the remastered/expanded version I have to say that does enhance the original (and... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mr. B. J. Weatherup
5.0 out of 5 stars
Immensely important album that I'm pleased to revisit
I bought this albumn when it first came out on good old vinyl. At the time I was bowled over by it's innovation and for once recognised it to be a seminal work from the start. Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2011 by S. Tracey
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Bushtucker
This is an album i,ve always loved anyway,but your
price was brilliant,as was the time etc to receive
Top Banana!
price was brilliant,as was the time etc to receive
Top Banana!
Published on 13 May 2010 by Mr. T. F. Rees
5.0 out of 5 stars
Music with "Found" Voices and Instruments
Eno and Byrne described the sampling (I know they did it manually with tape rather than with a sampler machine) as using "found voices and sounds. Read more
Published on 23 Nov 2008 by Numinous Ugo
4.0 out of 5 stars
in the Bushell of Ghosts
I think I ought to counter the effusive responses here and put in my opinion, for what its worth. Yes, this album does sound ahead of its time, and yes, there is some beautiful... Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2007 by Steve
5.0 out of 5 stars
Visionary work
Spacehopper "aldorb" or whatever you're name is: you need to calm down. This is not a great album ruined, nor a sorry excuse for a re-release. Read more
Published on 11 Oct 2007 by stark raven maven
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - The Director's Cut
My Life of the Bush of Ghosts is an extraordinary, prescient collection of songs that is almost without peers (although other reviewers here have done a good job of summarising... Read more
Published on 21 April 2007 by Demob Happy
1.0 out of 5 stars
One Of The All Time Great Albums Ruined
As this is one of the most important albums of all time I was astounded that it omits one of the original songs, Qu'ran. Read more
Published on 6 Dec 2006 by Yossarian
5.0 out of 5 stars
An album ahead of its time
This is one of the all time greats, still sounding ahead of the game 26 years after it was originally released. Read more
Published on 26 Sep 2006 by Mark T
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