Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Brian Eno & David Byrne - Mea Culpa



My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (still awe-inspiring)
This version by Bruce Conner
via Coudal Partners

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh man. I used to see a dentist who had a cassette tape player mounted on the side of the chair; he'd get me wasted on nitrous oxide and I'd slap My Life in the Bush of Ghosts into the tape machine, and just leave my body.

That and of course The Catherine Wheel

John M. said...

That's just awesome! Hilarious.

Try "African Head Charge - Songs of Praise" if you get the chance.

Anonymous said...

Seriously, he'd leave the nitrous oxide wide open until I said "Wo--dude."

That AHC "Conspiring" track, above--eh, it's derivative, I was more interested in the Betty-Boop visuals than the music.

Maybe if I was high on laughing gas . . .

John M. said...

I beg to differ. African Head Charge pioneered that sound. At least the stuff they did with Adrian Sherwood. Their other stuff is straight reggae. They are the real deal.

Conspiring is one of their more 'average' tracks.

John M. said...

I challenge you to produce a single track that they derived their sound from.

Anonymous said...

Okay, this isn't an area of expertise for me, I defer to your greater knowledge.
I had to do a brief search to find that this here is what you call yer dub reggae, and Wikipedia has this to say about that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dub_reggae

--and for what it's worth, Adrian Sherwood is mentioned, but not African Head Charge. Still, I withdraw my "derivative" comment, because I really don't know what I'm talking about.

John M. said...

I will backtrack and say that Bush of Ghosts was probably a big influence on Sherwood and you can feel it in Song of Praise, but it probably influenced a lot of people.

Big difference: Eno/Byrne was largely sampled/recorded augmented with instruments, AHC is a band augmented with samples.

The track I chose isn't on Songs of Praise. I tried to find something but no luck. Yet.

I couldn't recommend it more.

Their straight reggae is pretty eh, except for the tune 'Touch I' which is a lot of fun. It's actually a great tune to drop at a party.

I'll stop.

Alan (Evil) Miller said...

This may be the single most important album for my musical vision. This album entranced me and became one of several musical summits I just wanted a view of, even if I never approached the base.

"Do you hear voices? Then you must be possessed."

John M. said...

If memory serves me correctly, Eno talks a little about the making of the album in his Long Now Foundation Talk. The very first one.

http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/

all the way at the bottom