April 19, 2007 – 9:58 am
I was at the Bull’s Head last night, and DJ Dick from Rockers Hi-Fi & Different Drummer was on the decks. He pulled out a track from this album — one of the most important records in my musical history by a country mile — and nobody seemed to know it. Apart from anything else… am I really that old?
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by David Byrne and Brian Eno came out in 1981, and yet if it had been made yesterday, I maintain it would still sound years ahead of its time. It was remastered and reissued last year (with a far less cool cover) and an online remix project was launched. That seems only right and proper.
This record was perhaps the first album — certainly that I was aware of — that used vocal samples and edited them, cut them up and recontextualised them as a key component of the music. It also made use of ‘found objects’ as percussion instruments. It was way ahead of the game.
Byrne and Eno were particularly interested in African music around this time, as can be heard on Talking Heads’ best album Remain In Light, produced by Eno around the same time (and released prior to Bush of Ghosts in 1980) — and the one chord grooves they build up really carry that.
Bush of Ghosts was released in a number of different versions (first with, then without Qu’Ran) and the 2006 reissue includes several more outtakes, bringing the total up to 18 tracks. I’ve chosen two of my favourites here — because if you’ve never heard this, it needs to be rectified immediately.
Some of the voices they sample date back decades before the album was made, but on these tracks, the recordings are contemporary ones: a broadcast sermon from New Orleans in the first instance, and an exorcism in the second(!).
Click to listen:
Help Me Somebody – Byrne & EnoThe Jezebel Spirit – Byrne & Eno
It’s amazing stuff — and you should own it. I’d put it as one of the key turning points in popular music history — arguably (though I’m opening a can of worms here) on a par with Never Mind The Bollocks.
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2 Comments
Couldn’t agree more! But you knew that…
I bet everyone in the Bull’s Head could hear the influence of Byrne & Eno in the bands that followed them so maybe it’s the fate of genuinely innovative artists that the army of people they inspired obscure the originator.
The term ‘genius’ appears too often when describing musicians, Brian Eno and David Byrne have a substantial body of work, both collaboratively and individually, that for me indicates they both have bordered on such respect (I will always be biased towards Eno, Another Green World being one of the soundtracks of my life).
I was listening recently to Sound of Silver by LCD Soundsystem and the opening track ‘get innocuous!’, once you get beyond the Kraftwerk, We are the Robots beat and bassline, turns in to a Remain in Light type vocal pastiche, followed by aTom Tom Club rap. Do I like it? Yes! But I am old enough to know the musical references. Being somewhere that plays an old tune that still sounds really good even though younger people do not get it yet is a damn fine club to be in. You obviously appreciate and LISTEN to music, the ‘kids’ will catch up soon, only to be replaced by other people who have no sense of musical history. That is just how it is, people learn.
Is My Life in The Bush of Ghosts responsible for all the terrible ‘mash up’ albums out there (Coldcut and 2 Many DJs excluded), is Another Green World responsible for Enya and other ambient twaddle? Technology plays a part, but influence is equally inportant.
With reference to Never Mind The Bollocks, yes it still sounds good, but it amazes me how tame it sounds. They got on the front page of newspapers through outrage, attitude and obscenity, now you only have to be going out with a model…..am I really this old?