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13 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Remastered reissue of classic LP with bonus tracks galore.., 7 Mar 2006
Both Eno & Talking Heads have benefited from remastered reissues the last few years, so it's great news that the classic Eno/Byrne LP appears in this form shortly after 'Remain in Light' - which is a relative of this record. This reissue comes with a remastered sound, a clutch of bonus tracks (...likely to be of academic interest like the RIL bonus tracks) & a horrible new cover - why have they nixed the classic original? I hate it when people do that with reissues - as irritating as those Japan reissues where Sylvian got Orwellian with the past...The original cover is as great as Eno's cover for the original of Don DeLillo's 'White Noise'- the cover was partly the reason I bought it in the first place!!The territory Byrne & Eno developed during 'Fear of Music' was the impetus for this album - two tracks on FOM 'I Zimbra' & 'Drugs' were key. The former veered off into ethnic directions (the 'Fourth World Music' coined by Jon Hassell) and world music rhythms; while the latter took some zoo-samples and layered a song around these. Eno & Byrne began work on 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' shortly after FOM - most of the album was recorded in 1980, though released in 1981 on EG records after 'Remain in Light.' There are guests - Talking Head Chris Frantz (on 'Regiment'), Bill Laswell ('America is Waiting') & live Head band member Steve Scales ('Help Me, Somebody'). For the most part Byrne and Eno play everything here and dispense with vocals - choosing to use samples from public radio of preachers set to the zeitgeist of the Iranian revolution, the invasion of Afghanistan by Russia, the fall out of Cambodia, the rise of Reagan & the Iranian hostage crisis. Like Cabaret Voltaire's 'Three Mantras'(parts of 'Red Mecca'- 'black mask' say -and single 'Yashar')'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' tapped into a culture clash between West & East, while the samples of orgasmic sounding preachers extotlling born-again values has some resonance with the current climate. The title, incidentally, comes from Amos Tutuola's novel of the same name - a book that's out of print at present and was also an influence on Neutral Milk Hotel's masterpiece "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea." The original 11-track album is fantastic, one of those albums I can play anytime, see: 'Future Days';'Remain in Light';"In the Aeroplane Over the Sea";'Loveless';'Spirit of Eden';'Low';'Another Green World';'The Marble Index'; 'Hot Buttered Soul'; 'Rock Bottom';'Heart of the Congos'(etc...) Byrne & Eno blend funk rhythms, post-Krautrock elements, ambient music, world music and waves of samples to hypnotic effect. What Silver Apples started with 1968's 'Program' or John Cage did with 'Radio Music' even earlier is extended here - a key culture clash record that was followed/accompanied by such peers as 'Red Mecca', Czukay's 'Movies'/'Peak to Normal', parts of Throbbing Gristle's 'Journey Through a Body', the world music element of PIL's 'Flowers of Romance', Jah Wobble's solo-directions in the 80s, 23 Skidoo, A Certain Ratio, Mark Stewart, Meat Beat Manifesto, Simple Minds' 'Twist/Run/Repulsion', 'No New York', Tackhead...Like 'Remain in Light' it contained 'world music' before the term was coined and before Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Sting et al jumped on the bandwagon and before someone like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was discovered by the Western masses. Records certainly followed in its slipstream - David Sylvian's more experimental work ('Alchemy', 'Plight & Premonition'), A Guy Called Gerald's 'Voodoo Ray', Peter Gabriel's 'Passion', Ofra Haza,Ministry's sampledelic 'The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste',AR Kane's eclectic 'I', the lame likes of Jesus Jones & B.A.D. (the former sampled 'Mea Culpa' on single 'Info Freako'!). In fact anything sampledelic probably owes it a debt - Public Enemy's double whammy 'It Takes a Nation of Millions/Fear of a Black Planet', 'Three Feet High & Rising', Coldcut's remix of 'Paid in Full', 'Endtroducing', 'Paul's Boutique', '19', 'How to Be a Zillionaire',Wu-Tang, Moby's gospel/field recording samples on 'Play' (which were nicked from Alan Wilder's Recoil project!), Godspeed You Black Emperor!, 'Blue Lines' etc etc. (Though let's make it clear, samples precede MLITBOG - Silver Apples' 'Program', Lee Perry's 'Revolution Dub', parts of Miles Davis' 'On the Corner', 'The Dark Side of the Moon' & The Beatles' 'Tomorrow Never Knows' could be presented!). The album itself? - fantastic, all 11 tracks superb - 'Mountain of Needles' an ambient joy, the hypnotic 'Come With Us' arresting - though the peak always remains 'Help Me Somebody'-'The Jezebel Spirit'-'Very, Very Hungry.' A key record of the 1980s, a key album of all time and wonderful to have this reissued so I can replace my ancient cd (...someone borrowed my original tape and I never got it back...) - the only negative is the new cover!!!!
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