When the David
Byrne / Brian Eno collaboration My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was first
released in 1981, Rolling Stone called it “an undeniably awesome feat of
tape editing and rhythmic ingenuity.” It was widely considered a
watershed record for future genres from world music to electronica, and
almost 25 years later, the influence of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is
evident in music ranging from The Bomb Squad’s productions for Public
Enemy to Moby, Kruder and Dorfmeister, and Goldie. Nonesuch reissued the
album—remixed, remastered, and with seven bonus tracks—on its 25th
anniversary, in 2006.
In keeping with the original spirit of the album, and in line with
Creative Commons licenses, all the multitracks from two of the songs on
the album will be available for download at bush-of-ghosts.com. Users
will be able to remix the tracks and upload to the site, listen, and
rate others remixes and upload videos they have made themselves. The
site will also feature archival press from the original album release,
essays, photos from the original sessions, polaroids taken by David
Byrne and a video made by Bruce Conner for the song "Mea Culpa" which is
also included on the CD itself.
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is inspired by Byrne’s and Eno’s shared
love of African pop, and their particular fascination with the music of
1970s West Africa. In addition to playing by Byrne and Eno, the album
incorporates a variety of “found” voices: radio talk-show hosts,
Lebanese mountain singers, preachers, exorcism ceremonies, Muslim
chanting, and Egyptian pop, among others. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
also includes the contributions of eleven other musicians, including
Bill Laswell, Tim Wright, David van Tieghem, and the Talking Heads’
Chris Frantz.
Byrne’s and Eno’s explanations of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts could
easily be descriptions of records released two decades later and
considered groundbreaking for theirtime. Eno says, “It's almost collage
music, like grafting a piece of one culture onto a piece of another onto
a piece of another, and trying to make them work as a coherent musical
idea, and also trying to make something you can dance to.”
Byrne further elucidates the recording process: “At that time there were
no samplers, so the found vocals were inserted into the music by trial
and error. We’d have two tape machines playing simultaneously, one
containing the track and the other the vocal and, if the gods willed,
which they often seemed to, there would be a serendipity, the vocal and
the track would at least seem to feel like they belonged together, and
it would be a ‘take.’ It was all ‘played” and very seat-of-the-pants.
There was none of the incremental tweaking and time-correcting that is
possible with modern samplers and computers, so throwing the vocals
against the tracks was in our case almost a performance.”
Personnel:
Brian Eno and David Byrne, guitars, basses, synthesizers, drums, percussions, found objects
John Cooksey, drums (4)
Chris Frantz, drums (3)
Dennis Keeley, bodhran, (2)
Mingo Lewis, bata, sticks (5, 8)
Prairie Prince, can, bass drum (5, 8)
Jose Rossy, congas, agong-gong (7)
Steve Scales, congas, metals (4)
David van Tieghem, drums, percussion (1, 3)
Busta Jones, bass (3)
Bill Laswell, bass (1)
Tim Wright, click bass (1)
Rooks on track 4 courtesy April Potts, Eglingham Hall
tracklist:
01. America Is Waiting
02. Mea Culpa
03. Regiment
04. Help Me Somebody
05. The Jezebel Spirit
06. Very, Very Hungry
07. Moonlight In Glory
08. The Carrier
09. A Secret Life
10. Come With Us
11. Mountain Of Needles
12. Pitch To Voltage
13. Two Against Three
14. Vocal Outtakes
15. New Feet
16. Defiant
17. Number 8 Mix
18. Solo Guitar With Tin Foil
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ReplyDeletethanks a lot! very much appreciated.
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