BRIAN ENO - TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN (BY STRATEGY) @ 50

Marking half a century on the shelves this month is the sophomore solo LP from former Roxy Music electronics wizard, Brian Eno, with Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) being released in November of 1974. The album continued his trajectory into the "art-pop" genre, though his focus was more refined, even opting for a very tight group of musicians for the album, rather than the large list of guest musicians credited on his solo debut.

One of the key innovations in Eno's process came about during the recording of this album, as he and artist Peter Schmidt developed their first iteration of their Oblique Strategies card system. The initial version took the form of a deck of 7-by-9-centimetre (2.8 in × 3.5 in) printed cards in a black box. Each card offers a challenging constraint intended to help artists (particularly musicians) break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking. Examples of suggestions include: Honour thy error as a hidden intention, Use an old idea, Try faking it, etc. The deck would eventually include over 100 cards, with some later web editions topping 200. The system would end up becoming integral to Eno's creative process, for both his own works and all his collaborative projects, throughout his career.

Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) is a loose concept album that references themes of geopolitical intrigue ranging from espionage to the Chinese Communist Revolution. The album was inspired by a series of postcards depicting a Chinese revolutionary opera titled, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy. Eno described his understanding of the title as referring to "the dichotomy between the archaic and the progressive. Half Taking Tiger Mountain – that Middle Ages physical feel of storming a military position – and half (By Strategy) – that very, very 20th-century mental concept of a tactical interaction of systems."

The core musicians for the album include former Roxy Music band-mate, Phil Manzanera on guitar, Robert Wyatt on percussion, Freddie Smith on drums, and Brian Turrington on bass. Guest musicians include Phil Collins playing drums on Mother Whale Eyeless, which came about as repayment for Eno helping produce the Genesis album, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

The lyrics for the album introduce another technique that would become a regular tactic, not only for Eno, but for people like David Bowie during their work together in subsequent years. Eno would begin developing lyrics by singing nonsense words along with the music, focusing on the phonetic qualities of the sounds before attempting to evolve them into recognizable words. It's a process that, like the Oblique Strategies cards, could often reveal unique and unexpected word couplings that might not have otherwise become apparent. By the time they took their final forms, the lyrics, inspired by the aforementioned theme, took on a decidedly darker and more sinister tone than his previous album.

While the album failed to chart on either side of the pond, it received widespread critical acclaim, and has since become considered essential listening as far as Eno's solo releases are concerned. As it was instrumental in introducing certain key processes for Eno, its influence has been significant, far beyond what it may imply by its limited commercial success.

TALKING HEADS, FEAR OF MUSIC @ 45

 

Released on August 3rd, 1979, the third LP from Talking Heads, Fear of Music, turns 45 years old today. While being one of the bands darkest and most introspectively paranoid albums, it also signalled a change in direction towards a more rhythmically complex and engaging form of dance music.

At the time the band started recording demos for the album, they were working without a producer and conscientiously focusing on more dance inspired rhythms from disco, Afro-beat and funk influences. However, their initial recording attempts proved unsatisfactory, sending the group retreating back to their home base at Chris & Tina's NYC loft, where they'd previously rehearsed before they were signed to their record deal with Sire. It was at this point that they brought producer, Brian Eno, back into the fold to help them get focused, especially after his successful work on their previous album, More Songs About Buildings and Food. Eno came up with the idea to take advantage for their home base sense of comfort and booked a mobile recording facility so that he could wire up Chris & Tina's loft, which is where they recorded the basic bed tracks for the album. The remainder of the album was recorded at a variety of NYC studios in the area, including the Record Plant and Hit Factory.

Eno played a crucial role in helping the band to push their more experimental leanings, crafting unique processing effects throughout the album's songs and bringing in guest musicians like Robert Fripp to add some flourishes to the instrumentation. As previously stated, they were moving into a much funkier groove, with tracks like I Zimbra telegraphing where the band would head on subsequent albums with their Afro-centric sense of poly-rhythms.

Thematically, the lyrics were very much focused on a kind of dystopian alienation, with song lyrics portraying characters racked by paranoia. Songs like "Air" even took that rebellion against existence to the point of rejecting the very atmosphere that surrounds us. Other tracks explored other states of discomfiting separation, like "Drugs", which perfectly captured the sense of disconnection from reality when someone's had a little bit too much of some mind altering substance or another. Even "Heaven" literally had "nothing" happening in it. Everything was out to get you on this album. "Animals" couldn't be trusted and even the musician's companion, the "Electric Guitar" was an adversary you should "never listen to". It's perhaps the band's most neurotic album ever. The album's packaging reinforced this bleakness, coming as it did in a plain black sleeve with an embossed pattern that resembled metal plating used in factories.

Critically, the album was extremely well received and has continued to garner accolades, often being referred to as one of the group's best and most adventurous records. Commercially, it also did well, though its singles weren't quite as successful as those that preceded and followed the album. This was my gateway into the world of Talking Heads and it has remained my personal favourite of their catalogue ever since I picked it up when it was originally released. It's one of those records that never seems to lose its charm and constantly rewards repeat listening, revealing new details with each encounter.

DAVID BOWIE - LODGER @ 45

 

Marking its 45th anniversary today is David Bowie's 13th studio LP, and last of the "Berlin Trilogy", Lodger, which was released on May 25th, 1979. Though the bromance between Bowie & Eno was cooling off, tempering the reception of the LP at the time of its release, retrospectively, it has become recognized as one of his most underrated albums.

The "Berlin" era began when Bowie and Iggy Pop recused themselves from the rock 'n' roll fast-lane and escaped to France and then Germany near the end of 1976. Both were looking to dry out from their respective bad habits. In the case of Bowie, it was a gargantuan cocaine addiction that left him emotionally hollow and physically whittled down to a frail stick. Iggy, on the other hand, had become a professional junkie, with the result being that his band, The Stooges, had disintegrated by the middle of the decade. Their efforts to get their shit together ended up resulting in a string of remarkable albums, including The Idiot and Lust For Life, for Iggy, and Low and "Heroes" for Bowie. But by the back end of 1978, Bowie and principal collaborator Brian Eno's creative jive was starting to run out of gas, albeit they were still committed to knocking out one more album to cap off their adventures.

Work on Lodger began in September of 1978 with a four month break from touring giving them the chance to get back into the studio. They assembled essentially the same creative team as the previous album: Tony Visconti, Carlos Alomar, Dennis Davis and George Murray. A new addition was future King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew, who Bowie had "poached" from Frank Zappa's latest tour.

In order to push the creative boundaries of the album, Bowie and Eno leaned heavily into Eno's Oblique Strategies system, which was a collection of customized playing cards containing vague suggestions that could be randomly drawn whenever anyone felt they were hitting a creative wall and needed a nudge in an unanticipated direction. Using this process, the musicians would receive instructions such as to swap instruments or play a familiar musical theme backwards. Belew was, at one point, asked to record guitar solos without listening to any of the music or having even an indication of the key to play in. While this methodology could spur innovation, it was not always popular with some of the musicians, who were pushed to work well outside their comfort zones. None of the songs would even have lyrics until the very end of the process, when Bowie took all the musical backings to the Record Plant studio to record his vocals.

The results of these sessions turned out to be rather different than the preceding two LPs and their mix of vocal and instrumental tracks. All the songs used for Lodger ended up with vocals, and the focus was on more pop song structures, though the feel was decidedly subversive throughout. Musically, the tracks ventured into a variety of styles, including Afro-rhythms, reggae, atonal post-punk discord and Middle Eastern motifs. The lyrical themes were split on each side of the record between concepts of travel on the first side and social critiques on the second.

For the album's cover, photographer Brian Duffy shot Bowie in a tiled bathroom looking like an accident victim, heavily made up with an apparently broken nose and a bandaged hand. This was inspired by the self-portraits of Egon Schiele. While the facial injuries were achieved with makeup and prosthetic appliances, the hand bandage was covering a real burn wound Bowie acquired earlier that day from some hot coffee. Call it a bit of a "happy accident"? Bowie was supported by a metal frame while the camera was positioned overhead in order to create the gravity defying final image, with Bowie looking like a fly that's been smacked by a giant swatter. At Bowie's request, the image was taken in low resolution by a Polaroid SX-70 type camera.

For the album's singles, innovative videos were shot for both D.J. and Boys Keep Swinging, the latter featuring Bowie in a series of drag outfits ranging from a '50s bobby-soxer, to a movie glamour queen to a matronly "Betty Davis" type character, all of whom end the video ripping off their wigs and smearing their lipstick in a show of defiance. It's gender bending at a time when drag was nowhere near the mainstream form of entertainment it is today.

At the time of its release, the pendulum of critical opinion had shifted from the universal praise bestowed on "Heroes" to a muddle of middling approval or outright disdain from some who felt it was a stop-gap album and dismissed it as a faltering miss-step after the previous album's confident successes. The consensus was that it was the weakest of the triptych of Berlin LPs, losing the focus and clarity of the previous releases. Yet it has undergone significant reappraisal in later years, with critics and fans giving it a second listen. The album received a complete remix in 2017, which helped to revive interests. Both Bowie and Visconti were never quite satisfied with the original mix, and the updated version does actually offer some clarity and body that is lacking in the original.

A few years ago, I wrote a piece on this album from a more personal perspective, looking at my relationship with it, how it was my first Bowie record and how it has remained one of my favourites throughout his career. You can find that piece here.

https://ugohere.blogspot.com/.../influential-album-david...

BRIAN ENO - HERE COME THE WARM JETS @ 50

Marking its golden jubilee today is the debut solo album from Brian Eno, Here Come the Warm Jets, which was released 50 years ago, on February 8th, 1974. While the album's experimentation and innovation rest on numerous contrivances, the end results certainly do not sound contrived.

Eno began working on the album shortly after his departure from Roxy Music, and he would utilized a number of former band-mates to contribute to the record, in a addition to a long list of other extremely varied collaborators. His explicit intent with his selection of guests was to counterpoint them against each other in an attempt to contrast seemingly incompatible styles and personal approaches. He specifically wanted to encourage them to break from their own conventions by being forced to interact with others who worked in entirely different ways. In terms of directing their performances, Eno often resorted to non-verbal instruction, using body language and interpretive dance moves as a means of expressing his intent. Once he'd captured performances from his musicians, he'd then take that raw material and process it in the studio until he attained often unrecognizable end results. Stylistically, he pulled together a pastiche of influences, both contemporary and vintage, incorporating elements of 1950s pop and rock & roll with elements of modern art-rock.

Though Eno didn't consider himself much of a singer, and indeed would mostly abandon that aspect of his creative arsenal in his later works, for his initial "pop" centred albums, he developed an approach to lyrics that involved first making nonsense vocalizations along with the music in order to identify phonetic qualities that best suited the piece. From this point, he'd gradually build in actual words and phrasing that ingrained those qualities, with the meaning of the lyrics being rather secondary to the process. This technique tended to deliver results that were cryptic and free-associative. As a result, Eno discouraged listeners from imposing too much emphasis on the meaning in the words. It's an approach that he'd pass on to people like David Bowie, who'd incorporate the methodology into the albums Eno produced with him during their Berlin era collaborations.

Critical response to the album was near universally positive, with only a few contrarian opinions on the album's merits. Critic Lester Bangs of CREEM declared it "incredible," and noted that "the predominant feel is a strange mating of edgy dread with wild first-time-out exuberance." Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave it an "A" rating, stating that "The idea of this record, 'Top of the Pops' from 'quasi-dadaist British synth wizard', may put you off, but the actuality is quite engaging in a vaguely Velvet Underground kind of way." With Eno coming off of his association with Roxy Music, he had enough career momentum to make the record a top 40 hit in the UK, making it one of his best selling solo releases, though it barely broke the top 200 in the US. Nevertheless, its legacy has assured it a place as essential listening when it comes to important releases from that era and in terms of appreciating Eno's catalogue in all its diversity.

FRIPP & ENO - (NO PUSSYFOOTING) @ 50

 

Released 50 years ago this month, the debut LP from Fripp & Eno, (No Pussyfooting), is marking its golden anniversary. As well as being a notable cornerstone in the evolution of ambient music, the album's technical innovations are worthy of appreciation. It's a minimalist approach which primarily used Robert Fripp's guitar as the principal sound source (although Eno does incorporate some synth into the background loops of the second track). The key innovation here is Eno's implementation of a dual reel-to-reel tape system, which linked the two decks in such a way that sounds recorded on one deck were carried over by the tape for playback on the second, which in turn would feed the sound back to the first. The effect was to create a long echo effect with a correspondingly extended decay envelop. The result was a droning sound, which multiplied a single note into near infinite overlapping layers, where subtle variations in playing could create complex harmonic interactions. The album, using this technique, includes two side-long compositions, recorded at discrete sessions nearly a year apart: "The Heavenly Music Corporation" on side one, and "Swastika Girls" on side two. The title for the latter song originated with the discovery of a porno magazine fragment on the pavement, which Eno happened upon while walking towards the studio the night of the mix. The page featured the title phrase, along with a photo of naked girls with swastika emblems on their arms. The fragment was brought to the studio and kept on the mixing desk throughout the production.

While the titles for the album and "songs" offer zero indication of any real connection to the sound of the record, the cover photo is quite a literal interpretation, showing the two artists sitting in a small mirror lined room, with infinite reflections receding off into the distance. They are separated by a small table, upon which are a series of "nudie" cards, displayed in a manner which appears to suggest some sort of perverse Tarot reading.

At the time of its release, the album was very poorly received. The record label was utterly opposed to it, given that Eno was launching his post Roxy Music solo career in parallel with the issuing of this bizarre and inexplicable album. With "Here Come the Warm Jets" featuring mostly radio friendly pop music, they were fretting over fans and critics becoming confused by the non-sequitur nature of (No Pussyfooting). The album did receive some favourable reviews, but most critics ignored it, and commercial sales were minimal enough to ensure the album stayed well away from any charts. Yet in retrospect, and with the benefit of hindsight, the visionary nature of the album has become far more apparent, and subsequent reappraisal has elevated it to a substantive level of influence and admiration. It certainly had an impact on artists like David Bowie, who would soon involve both musicians in some of his most innovative works.

DEVO - Q: ARE WE NO MEN? @ 45

 

Released on August 28th, 1978, DEVO's debut LP, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, turns 45 years old today. After incubating their music and philosophy over the course of some 5 years, the world was introduced to the concept of "De-Evolution", the principal that humanity had peaked as a species and was now backsliding into primitivism and ignorance.

Inspired by the Kent State Massacre of 4 students on May 4th, 1970, co-founder Gerald Casale began to formulate the basic principals of DeEvolution into the band, DEVO, back in 1973. Along with co-founder, Mark Mothersbaugh, brothers Bob 1 & Bob 2 and Alan Myers, the band spent three years developing songs, stagecraft and iconography in order to represent their vision of a degraded, displaced and disjointed dystopian future. By 1977, the group were ready to record and their demo was causing the likes of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno to be in the running to produced the album. The job ultimately landed with Eno, who flew the band out to Conny Plank's studio near Cologne, Germany.

Production of the album ended up being something of a battle of wills, as the band held steadfastly to conceptions about how the songs should be produced, while resisting potentially beneficial suggestions from Eno. In later years, band members would express regrets over their stubbornness and refusal to collaborate more openly with Brian. But despite the friction, they managed to produce an album of tight, angular and innovative music, which would prove to be deeply influential as upcoming young artists sought something more than the three chord slash of punk.

I know my own reaction to the band and the album was a sense of revelation. I saw them perform on Saturday Night Live and was immediately won over by their quirky, alien idiosyncrasy, which was counterbalanced by an uncanny sense of nostalgia for mid century modern aesthetics. Parts of it reminded me of music from Warner Bros cartoons, while other aspects left me feeling like I'd stepped into a '50s science fiction B-movie. Coupled with their hazard suited, herky-jerky robotic stage antics, you had the perfect formula for fanatical DEVOtion!

While some critics at the time of its release couldn't quite grasp what the band were doing, the album has still managed to secure a solid position as essential listening from that era, in the ensuing years since its release. It's an album I can still listen to at any time and enjoy its strangeness, while marvelling at its ability to resist sounding dated.

ROXY MUSIC - FOR YOUR PLEASURE @ 50

 

Marking its golden jubilee today is the sophomore LP from glam-rock pioneers, Roxy Music, with For Your Pleasure being released on March 23, 1973. Being their last record with synth maestro Brian Eno, it marked the end of their more eccentric musical excursions while also upping their production values.

After the success of their debut, for their second outing, Roxy Music were afforded the luxury of far more studio time with which to try out new ideas and experiment. This freedom, combined with Bryan Ferry being in top form in terms of songwriting, made it possible to deliver an album of exceptional innovation and quality. When it came to studio production techniques, the song "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" (Ferry's sinister ode to a blow-up doll) fades out in its closing section, only to fade in again with all the instruments subjected to a pronounced phasing treatment. The title track fades out in an elaborate blend of tape loop effects. Brian Eno remarked that the eerie "The Bogus Man", with lyrics about a sexual stalker, displayed similarities with contemporary material by the krautrock group Can. As for songwriting prowess, "Do the Strand" has been called the archetypal Roxy Music anthem, whilst "Editions of You" was notable for a series of ear-catching solos by Andy Mackay (saxophone), Eno (VCS3), and Phil Manzanera (guitar). Eno is very present in the final song from the album "For Your Pleasure", making it unlike any other song on the album. The song ends with the voice of Judi Dench saying "You don't ask. You don't ask why" amid tapes of the opening vocals ('Well, how are you?') from "Chance Meeting" from the first Roxy Music album.

For the album’s cover art, the front photo, taken by Karl Stoecker, featured Bryan Ferry's girlfriend at the time, singer and model Amanda Lear, who was also the confidante, protégée and closest friend of the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Lear was depicted posing in a skintight leather dress leading a black panther on a leash. The image has been described as being "as famous as the album itself". One could hardly imagine a more iconic image to accompany such an iconic album.

Upon its release, the album went to #4 on the UK charts, but oddly, received mixed reviews in some publications. In 1973, Paul Gambaccini of Rolling Stone wrote that "the bulk of For Your Pleasure is either above us, beneath us, or on another plane altogether." I suspect such critics were simply beneath the material and frankly missed the point. Retrospective criticisms over the past five decades have consistently placed it in the higher ranks of “best of” lists for the era, with many citing it as a definitive example of British pop music of the times. The combination of lyrical deviance and adventurous musicianship make it a truly outstanding artifact that has transcended the bounds of the era in which it was created.

HARMONIA 76 - TRACKS & TRACES @ 25

 

Released 25 years ago today, on November 4th, 1997, the material for Harmonia & Eno’s “Tracks and Traces” album was originally recorded in 1976, but remained shelved for over 20 years before it was salvaged from oblivion and finally published.

After hearing Harmonia in the early 1970s, which was a collaboration between Cluster’s Dieter Moebius & Hans-Joachim Roedelius and NEU! guitarist Michael Rother, Brian Eno proclaimed them the “most important group in the world.” Eno promised to come work with them and finally kept that promise in 1976, though they’d already split up by then. Nonetheless, they agreed to reunite with Eno and began recording together. At the time, those recordings ended up being set aside as Eno moved on to his collaboration with David Bowie for what would become the “Berlin Trilogy” albums: Low, "Heroes" & Lodger.

In the 1990s, Roedelius retrieved the master tapes from Eno and did a bit of work on them to create the 1997 edition of the album. Further to this, Michael Rother contributed additional material from his cassette archives for the 2009 reissue. Those tracks could now be included because the digital restoration process was sophisticated enough that Rother’s tapes could be cleaned up to remove noise and enhance the sound quality. This resulted in three bonus tracks being added to the release.

Stylistically, the collaboration with Eno traded some of the flair of the previous Harmonia albums for a more muted ambience, but it was a fair trade-off and the results were a kind of music that was well ahead of its time, being produced by four creative masters who were in their prime. It's only frustrating that it took two decades for these recordings to finally find the light of day.

DAVID BOWIE - "HEROES" @ 45

 

October 14th marks the 45th anniversary of the release of David Bowie’s 12th studio album, “Heroes”, which was issued on this date in 1977. It was the second in what would become known as the “Berlin trilogy”, but the only one of the three recorded entirely at Hansa Studios in Berlin. Whereas Low, the first of the trilogy, released earlier in the year, had received little promotion from Bowie or his label, “Heroes” would merit their full attention and became a major commercial and critical success because of it.

After completing Low, Bowie felt the album was too noncommercial and, rather than tour to support it, went on the road to play keyboards with Iggy Pop when not in the studio working with him to launch his solo career, co-producing two definitive LPs, The Idiot and Lust For Life. After that, Bowie got together with Brian Eno and producer, Tony Visconti to begin work on his next album in July of 1977, with sessions ongoing until the end of August. The band were essential the same as for Low, with Carlos Alomar on guitar, George Murray on bass and Dennis Davis on drums. Initially, there were discussions of bringing in NEU! guitarist, Michael Rother, to augment the band, but somehow that inclination got lost in the shuffle.

Ultimately it came down to a frustrating night in the studio working on the title track to determine the missing ingredient for these sessions. While struggling to figure out what was lacking in the arrangement, Eno suggested phoning friend and collaborator, Robert Fripp, in New York. Bowie spoke to him and Robert initially expressed reservations, stating that he hadn’t really done anything for the last three years, but would give it a go if Bowie was willing to take a chance. With a first class ticket couriered to Fripp, he was on a plane and spent three days in the studio, knocking out his guitar parts. Bowie and Eno were bowled over by his virtuosity as he nailed each take, never having heard the songs before arriving to record on them.

The bed tracks for the album came together quickly over the course of a few days, but the overdubbing process would take slightly longer. Sometimes this would leave them struggling to resolve creative blocks, a situation which Eno would frequently remedy by the use of his Oblique Strategy Cards, a deck of vague “suggestions”, which could be randomly drawn from to illicit unexpected ideas and approaches.

The vocals would all come last, after the music was completely in place and there was no one left in the studio except Bowie and Tony. Bowie had become enamored with Iggy Pop’s uncanny ability to improvise lyrics in the studio, often laying down complete songs off the top of his head in one take. Bowie determined to pursue this approach with “Heroes” and did so with the exception of one song being written in advance. Visconti was amazed at the passion which Bowie delivered while singing in this method. A prime example of that is the title track, which begins with Bowie offering a soft croon, but eventually peaks with him belting out at a shout that was powerful enough to crumble the Berlin Wall which inspired the lyrics.

Like Low, the first side of the album was given over to a mostly mainstream pop song format while the B-side featured more adventurous instrumentals like the Kraftwerk tribute V-2 Schneider. However, where Low had come across as more disturbed and dour, “Heroes” took on a much more optimistic and upbeat disposition. Something about doing it all at Hansa, a former concert hall used as a ballroom by Gestapo officers during World War II, which was within 500 yards of the Berlin Wall so soldiers from the other side were able to peer through their windows with binoculars, gave the musicians and producers a sense of defiant vitality while working in this potential powder-keg of an environment.

The cover for the album followed along the design aesthetic which had been used on the two Iggy Pop albums with a black & white photo of Bowie on the front. The look would be carried over for the video of the title track, which became one of the early harbingers of the video revolution lurking around the corner. I can recall seeing it on Bing Crosby’s Christmas special that year and being beguiled by Bowie’s presence. It was the first time he’d really made an impression on my 14 year old teen brain. It would be an impression which would stick with me and lead me to soon getting onboard with his final installment in the trilogy, Lodger.

While the label and Bowie had eschewed promoting Low, they weren’t so reluctant with “Heroes” and Bowie set about on a major touring schedule to promote the album and bring the material from Low into his live repertoire as well. The result was that the album was a success on both sides of the Atlantic, garnering a 3rd place peak on the UK charts and 35 in the US. The single, while a modest success at the time of its release has since gone on to become one of Bowie’s most frequently referenced songs. Of the three Berlin albums, it remains the most commercially successful.

ROXY MUSIC - ROXY MUSIC @ 50

 

Released on June 16th, 1972, the eponymous debut LP by Roxy Music is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary today. It’s an album that managed to bring the worlds of art-rock and glam together by combining the group’s eccentric musical approach with their extravagant fashion sense. That fusion would end up providing fodder for near future movements like punk, new wave and new romantics within the following decade after the album’s release. Each scene would have reason to reference Roxy Music as source material with bands like Japan and Duran Duran taking their cues from this progenitor and pushing those genetic building blocks to new heights.

Formed in 1970, Roxy Music went through a lot of personnel shuffling before they stabilized into a cohesion which was able to record their first LP. Though they rehearsed the material for a few months beforehand, they had to power through the recording process in no more than a week with the studio time financed by the band’s management. The album was in the can and had it’s cover designed before they had even signed to a label, but Island Records stepped in to pick it up shortly after completion and it gained chart traction quickly after its release.

The band’s music incorporated a number of different styles, but tied them all together with a bravado and panache which was offset by the bizarre interjections of Eno’s synthesizer work and elements of free-jazz via Andy Mackay’s reed work and Phil Manzanera’s guitar experimentation. It was progressive in execution, but still held close to pop conventions of catchy hooks and melodies, making it weirdly accessible without sacrificing the eccentricities that made it distinctive. CREEM’s Robert Christgau said: "From the drag queen on the cover to the fop finery in the centerfold to the polished deformity of the music on the record, this celebrates the kind of artifice that could come to seem as unhealthy as the sheen on a piece of rotten meat. Right now, though, it's decorated with enough weird hooks to earn an A.”

BRIAN ENO - AMBIENT 4: ON LAND @ 40

 

Released in March of 1982, Brian Eno’s Ambient 4: On Land, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month. It is a continuation of his development of the concept of ambient music, though it brings in a decidedly dark, brooding quality to the music, which gives it a subtle dissonance and sense of impending menace. Not exactly the kind of thing one might associate with this genre as it was previously defined by Eno, but it certainly ties into the direction ambient would take throughout the remainder of the decade with artists such as Lustmord and Zoviet France further pursuing that aura of darkness.

The process for creating this album involved a continual layering technique which Eno referred to as “composting”. In this approach, the synthesizer was found to be of increasingly limited use as Eno incorporated elements like field recordings and sounds of natural objects like sticks, lengths of chain and stones. "Unheard" audio elements were mixed and edited into compositions, repeatedly building up sounds only to strip them back down again in later processes. The eventual results became nearly incomprehensible in terms of identifying individual instruments and sound sources, though on occasion, something might pop up like Jon Hassell’s effect laden trumpet in the track, Shadow. Eno also had fairly specific intentions in mind insofar as how to listen to the album, even designing a three speaker configuration which he suggested would be accommodating to any recording which featured broad stereo imaging.

The album was recorded in NYC, gradually over the course of several years beginning in September of 1978 until it was completed in January of 1982. In addition to Eno and the above mentioned Hassell, other musicians of note who contributed to the album include bassist Bill Laswell and keyboardist Michael Beinhorn of Material.

DAVID BOWIE - LOW @ 45

 

January 14th marks the 45th anniversary of David Bowie’s 11th studio album, Low, which was released on this date in 1977. It marked the beginning of his “Berlin” period, an era of his work which would come to be considered the most challenging and ambitious of his career.

This phase didn’t actually begin with Low, however and didn’t start in Berlin, but rather in France where he and Iggy Pop had relocated with the intention to dry out. Bowie had spent the previous few years in LA, becoming a serious cocaine abuser and living the rock star lifestyle to the point that it nearly took him down. After becoming the emaciated “Thin White Duke”, complete with questionable politics, he recognized his trajectory was purely self-destructive and that he needed a major course correction. Pop was in the same boat with his heroine habit, so the two set about cleaning themselves up and working on Iggy’s first solo album, The Idiot, on which Bowie would co-write most of the songs and contribute significantly to the music. Tony Visconti came in to help with production and the stage was set for Bowie to start working on his own new album after The Idiot wrapped.

Some of the foundational work for Low started in 1976 when Bowie was working on the film, The Man Who Fell to Earth, for which he was initially planning to provide the score. That plan failed to come to fruition as director Nicholas Roeg didn’t like where he was going with the demo music and Bowie abandoned the idea completely. But the direction he was going was something he still wanted to explore, which is where Brian Eno comes into the picture as a collaborator for the new album. They’d both become enamored with the German “Krautrock” scene and bands like Tangerine Dream, NEU!, Kraftwerk and Harmonium, whom Eno had worked with. This influence became central in guiding the direction for Low as it lead them in the direction of experimentation with electronics and new compositional approaches which would become central in creating the sound for the album. One of the key ingredients, technology wise, was a bit of gear brought in by Tony Visconti, the Eventide H910 Harmonizer, which became a vital tool for achieving the album’s bizarre, electronic drum sound.

While most of the album was recorded in France before eventually moving to Berlin for final production, overdubs and mixing, the general mood was easy going. There were no schedules or deadlines looming over their heads, so the musicians could relax, try out unusual ideas and explore fresh approaches. That wasn’t immediately appealing to some, like guitarist Carlos Alomar, but even he eventually got onboard with the vibe and started to appreciate the creative freedom. But things in France were not all peachy as the skeleton crew staff at the studio were often neglectful of their guests and the cooks were bad enough to give the band food poisoning on at least one occasion. This made the move to Berlin something of a welcome change, one which would find Bowie rooted there for both Iggy’s next solo album, Lust for Life, and two more albums of his own, “Heroes” and Lodger. Collectively, that set of five albums by Pop and Bowie can be seen as the complete arc of the Berlin period. The album cover for Low, which was also a modified still from The Man Who Fell to Earth as was the Station to Station cover before it, was something of a visual pun as it showed Bowie in profile as he appeared in the film. The gag being that Bowie was being “Low profile” (insert rim-shot).

Once the album was completed and presented to RCA records, their executives were pretty much horrified by the results. After the massive success of Young Americans and Station to Station, the label had hopes for more in that vein and were not expecting the level of experimentation nor the emphasis on instrumental tracks that was integral to Low. They were so taken aback by it, they delayed releasing it for 3 months and, even when it did come out, refused to promote it. Bowie didn’t help as he wouldn’t tour to support the album and, instead, went on the road to support Iggy as his keyboard player. The miraculous thing about all this was that the album STILL managed to be a hit! It peaked at #2 in the UK charts and #11 in the US and remained on the charts for a considerable number of weeks.

Critically, the album split the press into a fragmentary array of those who didn’t understand it, those who thought it was an insult or a move of desperation or those who thought it was sheer genius. In terms of its legacy, it became a launchpad for virtually the entire post-punk scene as bands from Joy Division to Human League to Cabaret Voltaire read the signposts Bowie had planted in his music and duly set course for the strange waters he’d charted for them to explore. The confusion it inspired upon its release has since given way to the recognition that it represents a turning point, not just for Bowie as an artist, but for pop music as a cultural component as it set the standards for pushing boundaries and setting examples which others have used for their own ends.

BRIAN ENO & DAVID BYRNE - MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS @ 40

 

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.