Brian Eno - David Byrne ‎– My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

I am amazed at how well this recording sounds in 2012. It was stolen from my collection in 1983. Have just re-purchased. If this record had been released yesterday, I would be first in the queue to buy. There are a lot of guitar riffs, bass lines and percussion that are 100% Talking Heads from the Remain in Light era. But the combination with the found samples lifts this way beyond a 1980s period piece. A triumph of sampling from before samplers were invented. The lack of artist vocal from Byrne and Eno, and a focus on presenting the original sample with repetition that is supported by the rhythm of the backing instrumentation is key to making this work. Makes Moby sound lame.

4/5

this eno/byrne/laswell collaboration is a weird record, existing in some kind of post-disco alter-reality and strongly foreshadowing the rise of what would come to be known as industrial music. what would a talking heads fan have thought of this record upon first listen? consider the following alternate reality...

eno and byrne get together to produce a record and load it full of massive, symphonic ambience and searing political rhetoric. the ministry of information listens to the first ten minutes and responds, point blank, "there is no way this is getting out". so, they sabotage the pressing by replacing the initial recording with a bunch of spliced up snippets from top 40 hits in countries all over the world. neither eno nor byrne have any idea what's going on until a friend calls eno up and explains that the new album is the trippiest, most out there thing that anybody has ever heard and that it's becoming a huge hit amongst a certain clique of modernists. simultaneously, somebody from the ministry is explaining the whole thing to byrne. the two of them then get together and decide that, due to the success of the record, they're going to play along with the sabotage and pretend that the released record is the record they intended to release.

the political aspect of the record is messy. the general theme seems to be one satirizing not religion per se but america at the dawn of the reagan era. the jezebel spirit, for example, is a take on the lighter side of exorcism. tracks such as that one almost act as an expose of america during the 80s; despite the kid gloves treatment by a couple of arrogant brits, the snippets are thought-provoking in that they reveal a numerically substantial side of america that the elite in the country have barely even conceived the existence of for most of it's existence. the fact is that there are millions of americans alive today that are deeply, deeply religious and that deal with exorcisms and glossolalia as routinely as a mathematician deals with computing square roots. to these people, demons don't just exist - a few get exorcised at the church every week. in large portions of america, that kind of fundamentalist christianity is not an obscure or marginalized sect of non-conformists, it is mainstream society.

so, the statement from eno and byrne appears to be the opinion that the reagan revolution has driven america to the brink of complete insanity. yet, they seem more interested in making fun of america for being insane than they do in helping it regain it's sanity. the disc is also full of islamic and other religious imagery; when it switches gears like this, the satire seems to disappear. is that illusory? have i misunderstood? the islamic chants are in arabic, which i don't understand, which makes it impossible for me to determine a message, if there was one. the snippets could very well be equally preposterous and i'd never actually know. the "buddhist track" at the end has a strong opium reference, which, coming from byrne, is likely condescending; it would be a very sly reference to religion as the "opiate of the masses" to close things off. on the other hand, the impression of a satirical attack on christianity followed by an exploration of other faiths could be interpreted as suggesting a selection of alternatives. i told you it was messy and difficult to piece together.

i've even read some reviews suggesting that the ideal underlying this was to suggest a post-racial society by pasting various cultural and religious traditions together into a cohesive work, perhaps slightly foreshadowing gabriel's later work. while consistent with what i know about both byrne and eno on a political level, and weakly consistent with the totality of referenced sources from a global perspective, i refuse to accept that tracks such as the jezebel spirit were written with those aims because the conclusion to draw would be that the ideal is that the misogynist and, let's be honest, primitive aspects of christianity, and it's the record that isolates christianity from the others and not myself, should be placed on an equal footing with the esoteric side of eastern mysticism, regardless of one's views of that system and this would be completely inconsistent with what i know about both eno and byrne, especially eno, on a political level. now, it would be specious to claim that, therefore, either are opposed to a post-racial society; it is clearly the case that both are very much in favour of such a thing to such extreme levels that, if they were to redo the record, it would not be preposterous that they very well might write one with those aims in mind. as it is, i don't hear those goals. i hear biting, condescending political satire aimed at least at christianity and an ambiguous statement in regard to the other referenced systems of thought.

what's the drawback, then, why such a mediocre mark? well, musically, the record is a little oblique. the percussion, while varied and intricate, draws from questionable influences: disco, funk, polka. the voice snippets don't lend well to repeated listening and get a little grating after a while. the song structures are generally "boxed in", more so than is necessary in the genre. the disc does open up into some purely instrumental passages, some quite long, but at no point does the rhythm and feel of any of the tracks expand outside of the rhythm of the track. the result is that most of the record sounds oppressed within itself, it sounds as though it is trying to escape from it's own monotony but yet just can't get beyond the structure that it's trapped within. while this is somewhat appropriate as an observational statement describing america in the 80s, it's perhaps not the most interesting thing to listen to over and over again.

Extended edition, but still lacking the track "Qu'ran" of the orginal edition.

There's not a lot left to say about this seminal piece of music since it's release in '81 other than to say in 2007 it has stood the test of time admirably.
I will confine my comments to this particular release version. Is it worth buying all over again? Is the remastering any good? Are the extra tracks worthy of inclusion? Answer, a resounding Yes to all three. An added bonus for devotees is the inclusion of a track listing which allows the listener to sequence the tracks to recreate what the original LP would have sounded like if all the 'permissions' for vocal samples had been obtained before the release deadline was reached. A New life for 'My Life....'

The best thing Byrne's ever done, in my opinion. Talking Heads and his solo stuff is great but this is very much ahead of its time. For Eno, this is certainly one of his best, but he's has so many fabulous albums, I'd be hard pressed to say this was the best thing he ever did. Regardless, this is an amazingly interesting experimental theme album and the experiment was a definite succcess. To this day, this still sounds fresh.

A crazy and much-sampled by dance musicians album. Just listen to the production on the last track "Mountain Of Needles", it is incredible the amount of reverb at a couple of points in the track when there are slightly louder sounds. The sounds just seem to bound off into the distance somewhere (particularly noticeable if you're listening on headphones)

This is a blinding album, frequently listed in all time top 100's. It's use of samples (exorcisims, tribal chanting, religeous ceremonies) was ground breaking and another example of why many regard Eno of the Godfather of modern electronic music. The track Qu'Ran had to be removed from later pressings due to objections and was replaced by Very Very Hungry which originally featured on a 12" release of the Jezebelle Spirit.