Brian Eno, David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
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Free Music Notes for My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
Free Music Review: A favorite album made even better.
Hit: 5 Stars
I purchased "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" when it came out on vinyl in 1981. I first heard it at a party and was immediately drawn to it. At the time, it was one of the most innovative albums I had heard. I have probably played this album more times than I have played any other; it is burned into my brain. When it was eventually released on CD in the late 1980's, the sounds was somewhat cleaner (no vinyl crackle and pops), and overall sounded much like the original vinyl. That release added "Very Very Hungry" as the last cut, which was not on the original vinyl. An interesting note is that Qur'an was still cut #6 on that release, and it was later self-censored on the 1990 CD release, and on this new remastered CD. "Very Very Hungry" was moved to cut #6 to replace Qur'an.
This remastered edition has remarkably better sound quality. It is a real pleasure to hear one of my favorite albums sound even better after all these year. As others have noted, some of the songs have a few short sections restored, and there are 7 new cuts. The new cuts are interesting historically, but perhaps since I know the old album so well, the new cuts seem disconnected from the rest of the album.
The included booklet includes many pictures and details about the production of the album which were not in any previous edition. The whole package is a great re-release.
Free Music Review: What really happened in the eighties.
Hit: 5 Stars
Albums like this one are what makes me grit my teeth when people talk about how vapid 1980's music was. If only they knew how much they missed that was brewing below the surface (The early Butthole Surfers and Big Black, for example).
Anyway, I have loved this album since the day it was released on vinyl. Along with Holger Czuckay, Gregory Whitehead, Derek Bailey, Giorgi Ligetti and other experimental audio artists of lesser or greater extremes, this collaboration between Eno and Byrne came out with little fanfare and seemed to be overlooked for years afterwards (and in Gregory Whitehead's case...still). Back then the internet wasn't around to make it so easy for us to find such music and the music industry didn't see a lot of profit in it, so they gave us Boy George instead. Bush of Ghosts was one of those albums you would get wide-eyed to discover in someone else's record collection. It was a shocker to find someone else who had ever heard of it, let alone actually listened to it.
This album is a great combination of intelligence mixed with soul. I can't tell how many converts it has won over through me alone. No matter how your exploration of music led you to this page in Amazon I hope you'll buy this CD and see where it takes you next. Hopefully that journey will have nothing to do with Billy Idol......or American Idol for that matter.
Free Music Review: Skip in "Regiment"?
Hit: 5 Stars
I'm so glad I picked up this re-issue. It sounds sharp, clean, and fresh. There's much greater clarity than the vinyl and earlier cd release I have. And, as one person already noted, some of the mixes are a bit different from the originals. Track 3, "Regiment," for instance has an extended intro, which I love. HOWEVER, at 55 seconds into that song there is a skip, some kind of glitch that jumps the beat. As a drummer, I noticed this immediately and it really bugs me. Does anyone else out there notice this? Or did I somehow get a defective cd? Check it out! Listen carefully to the beat and you'll hear what I'm talking about (unless I happen to have a defective disc somehow).
By the way, "The Jezebel Spirit" still gives me chills and creeps me out (younger people would not know that this came out a few years after the huge popularity in the 70s of The Exorcist movie). Also to put this album in context, you need to listen to Byrne's music for The Catherine Wheel, especially the stuff with John Miller Chernoff, author of "African Rhythm and African Sensibility," a book I still find worthwhile. Oh, and you must read the book by Amos Tutuola, "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts," for a truly remarkable, terrifying, and beautiful story--kind of like an African Alice in Wonderland, but with grotesque, surrealistic absurdity.
Free Music Review: good rerelease of an amazing album
Hit: 5 Stars
I'm not sure how much better the remasters are on this disc than the original recording. They are better, I think, but the change is subtle. (As opposed to, say, the Talking Heads remasters, which are instantly, recognizably, and indisputably superior to the original recordings.) Everything just sounds a little crisper, I guess.
You can compare and ponder the point for some time, but what this rerelease has done is made me go back and listen again to what was a truly remarkable record the first time around and remains so to this day. It has held up amazingly well over the years. Way ahead of its time. Imagine Remain in Light with random samples and looped noise and sampled vocals filling up the spaces that David Byrne voice would normally occupy and you have a sense of it. Incredible.
This version also comes with seven bonus tracks. These range from tracks that truly could have made the album to ones that are just out-and-out bizarre. I adore the final number, guitar with tin foil.
If you already have the original version, I recommend getting this. If you don't have any previous version, you should stop reading this right now and go get it. Now. In fact, I'm not going to type anymore, just so you can go do it.
Free Music Review: Jittery masterpiece
Hit: 5 Stars
The one thing that struck me when first listening to the album was how jittery it sounded. The guitars sounded like they were going to explode at any minute....the samples were zooming in from all over the place....it almost sounded like total chaos was in progress. But the more you listen to this, the more you see how much effort went into it. It's also impossibly funky too. In the line between the magnificent Fear of Music and it's more successful follow up Remain in Light....this certainly feels like a jigsaw piece that fits in explaining the slight transition that occured during the making of the album. Having said that, it would be foolish to dismiss this as something that happened inbetween two Talking Heads albums. To do that would be to diminish its status. Really it's a collective, collaborative masterpiece. The amount of consideration that went into it and yet how spontaneous it all sounds is nothing short of amazing. It is the sort of album that everyone should own at least.