My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

Re-release of 1981 groundbreaking record, collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno. What might be considered a meeting of the career apogees of both brilliant men, this record mixes African/tribal sentiments of what Talking Heads were evolving into with Eno’s Ambient/On Land anti-music of the time. No “vocals”, instead radio broadcasts, “found sounds”, and what later became known as “sampling”. This allowed both men to distance themselves personally from the music and create something unique to both, exploring a plethora of influences, especially African and Middle Eastern, creating a record that is altogether Fela Kuti, Steve Reich, James Chance and the Contortions, Fripp, Musique Concrete, and of course Talking Heads. The project eventually involved luminaries such as Bill Laswell, Robert Fripp, Prairie Prince. Predating sampling, this record bridged the gap between NYC art rock and John Cage and launched a thousand ships that we all take for granted today. There are tracks on this record that would fit in a set of any genre: indie rock, world, metal, noise/experimental. A masterpiece for the ages, with must-read liner notes for anyone with any interest in music and its creation, fundamentals.

1) disjunct tribal beat, “America is waiting for a message of some sort or another” “no will whatsoever…”, talking heads funkiness, no wave guitar masterpiece
2) dark tribal drumming subliminal chants, chill, with insane vocal samples “I made a mistake”
3) proto middle eastern downtempo, funky chill bass, islamic chants, Fripp guitar gone totally Koran, just a masterpiece
4) t. heads urgent funky beat and guitar with awesome Baptist preacher radio samples "help me somebody!"
5) sampling of an excorcism, creepy despite the upbeat byrne’isms on guitar and funky feel
6) track DID NOT appear on original album despite placement at the beginning of original side B: funky, disjunct, strange on the ears, not as dense or interesting as rest of record- replaces the sublime “Qu’Ran”
7) urgent bass (less of a chill feel than the original mix) Baptist preacher again, delivering a sermon that’s beautiful, if incomprehensible, with a beautiful gospel small-choir samples, then manipulations and a trippy story-telling “we far from home and very tired…” mystical
8) chill ambient tribal drumming, ethereal feel, with Islamic chanting, new samples, urgent phrases injected into this new mix that weren’t in the original
9) very chill tribal, sparse rhythm, beat, with an incredible vocal sample mix that’s evidence that Eno just came off a recording collaboration with John Hassel: very horn-like, very On Land feel
10) probably the “strangest” piece, a pulsing collage of bursts of bass, guitar, trippy voice samples (“learn the truth!”,”time to die”), a plethora of psa and LID soundbite material
11) the last cut from the original album: a beautiful slow ambient mindful walk through clouds of wisdom, creativity and genius that is all things fripp/eno/byrne

Bonus Tracks
12) clearly a rhythmic and melodic idea that went nowhere, cool though
13) feels just like something off of eno’s On Land, funky but undeveloped
14) very brief echoey thing
15) fun messing around in the studio feel
16) shades of previous bass lines, coolest of the unreleased tracks, collage of ideas
17) halting funky, Islamic samples, low-fi
18) solo, pretty, ambient mindful treated guitar (tin foil, but not obvious) a la John Abercrombie