Another
February anniversary of note is the Brian Eno & David Byrne
collaboration, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which was released 40
years ago in February of 1981.
The album was recorded during a
hiatus from Talking Heads between 1979-1980, following the completion of
Fear of Music and prior to recording Remain In Light. The album was
release after Remain in Light, however, due to the time it took to
secure legal clearances to use the multitude of voice samples which were
at the core of the project. While it was not entirely unheard of for
experimental artists to use so-called "found vocals" (Holger Czukay had
done it as early as 1969 on his Canaxis LP), no one had done it so
extensively and with such emphasis as Eno & Byrne did for this LP,
essentially turning these recordings into the lead vocals for each
composition. Musically, the heavily African influenced rhythms also
utilized a lot of sampling and looping and the entirety of this process
became hugely influential in subsequent musical movements from hip-hop
to techno to ambient and beyond. This was certainly one of the first
albums I heard which used such techniques so prominently.
The
work done on Bush of Ghosts was an essential paving of the way towards
what would happen with Talking Heads' Remain In Light album following
the completion of this project. Many of the compositional and technical
approaches developed on MLitBoG were foundational for RiL. There's a
clearly audible progression and connection between the two records,
making them stand together as musical cousins, if not direct siblings.
Though there was a tendency to downplay the significance of the album at
the time of its release as being merely an indulgence for a couple of
creative minds at loose ends between projects, time has born witness to
the significance of this album as its influence has extended into
popular music. Sampling, in our times, is ubiquitous and taken for
granted, but back when this album was released, it was almost unheard of
and certainly no one had attempted to realize its potential to the
degree that was achieved by Brian and David.
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