Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Brian Eno & David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts (1981)

Take Brian Eno's penchant for electronic experimentation and David Byrne's Afro-beat leanings and what you have is one of the more innovative records of the early '80s, it wasn't the first commercial music album to feature sampling, but it is considered landmark in its achievements. When asked if he invented sampling, Eno said in an interview:
"No, there was already a history of it. People such as (Can's) Holger Czukay had made experiments using IBM Dictaphones and short-wave radios and so on. The difference was, I suppose, that I decided to make it the lead vocal on the album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts..."
(from Q Magazine, July 2001)

So there you go, an album that's both funky and ground-breaking. This is the 1990 re-issue, and missing from it is the track "Qu'ran" which was considered offensive to Muslims because it used real samples of recitations of the Islamic holy book, recorded in an Algerian mosque. In its place is the B-side to single The Jezebel Spirit, titled Very, Very Hungry.



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