Customer Reviews

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is such a strange, wonderful work. Many claim this is the 'start of sampling', but the real fact is that the admitted inspiration here is Holger Czukay's "Movies"; anyone who likes this should also buy that release. Byrne and Eno, around the same period as Talking Heads' "Fear of Music" and "Remain in Light", crafted this 'instrumental' (there are vocals, but they're all from recorded sources!) record, which shares a lot of the feel of those two albums. It's also related to Eno's collaboration with Jon Hassell, "Fourth World, Vol. 1", with that being the pure-ambience side of the African/Arabic soundscape that this album occupies. Musically, this is a heady brew, with downtown NYC funk side by side with sampled Lebanese folksingers, and strange sci-fi ambiences swirled together with ominous voices beamed in from...somewhere. Hard to explain, really. Best way I could explain this is to describe it as the soundtrack to some strange Egyptian redux of "Blade Runner" that has yet to be shot, if ever! Buy!

The immediate post-punk music scene of the late '70's and early 80's was unquestionably the most musically inspired era of our time. Up until that time, Rock & Roll had stratified and corporatized and there was virtually nothing worthwhile playing on the radio. Into that creative void leapt pioneers like David Byrne (then still with Talking Heads) and Brian Eno (formerly with Roxy Music). The two came together on a series of collaborative efforts - every single one of which has stood the test of time (note also the "Catherine Wheel", Talking Heads' "More Songs About Buildings and Food", "Fear of Music" and - of course, "Remain in Light"). "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" is their penultimate effort. Bizarre and sublime at the same time, virtually every track on what was then Side 1 on vinyl is a singular achievement.

The herky-jerky, and twisted, "America is Waiting" (Track 1), the menacing (and paradoxically humorous) "Mea Culpa" (Track 2), the haunting "Regiment" (featuring a Lebanese folk singer accompanied by electric guitar - Track 3), the wonderful "Help Me Somebody" (sampling aviary noises accompanied by the impassioned pleas of a black preacher - Track 4), and the skin crawling intensity of "Jezebel Spirit" (sampling voices from an exorcisim (!) with an unstoppable beat - Track 5) are all (for better or for worse) forever etched in my mind.

The remaining tracks traverse much more ambient terrain (and are not nearly as intense as Tracks 1 through 5 - almost a welcome relief, especially after "Jezebel Spirit"). Unlike a lot of ambient music, though, Side Two is not musical wallpaper.

"My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" has got to be heard to be believed.

If you're fond of Moby's "Play," you'll love this album. Decades before Moby decided to take creaky old gospel wails and blues hollers and fuse them onto gleaming, haunted electronic grooves, Brian Eno and David Byrne were doing exactly the same thing--only with even more imagination. Behind the funky musical backdrop of "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" you'll hear TV chatter, Arabic chants, exorcisms, random shouts. It's truly a wild ride--like a quantum-leaping psychic journey from Mississippi to Mecca to Manhattan and then finally all the way up to a mountain in rural Japan. If you're at all curious about the roots of ambient music, electronica, sampling, "world beat"--well, Byrne and Eno paved the way for a lot of those genres with this gorgeous, hypnotic album. Check it out.

Listening to this album at a distance of more than two decades, it becomes a peek at what was coming in the 1990s with artists like Moby and DJ Shadow. With Eno's knack with establishing moods and Byrne's love of rhythm, it's an arresting recording. But I withhold the five-star ranking because, somewhere along the line, one track on the album has been changed. "Very, Very Hungry" is a nice track, but the original LP contained a track in its place called "Qu'ran," which contained a recording of "Algerian Muslims chanting Qu'ran" (as the original LP notes). I'm assuming the track was removed for political reasons - understandable in these charged times but very disturbing nonetheless. (Since I don't speak Arabic, I don't know what verses from the Qu'ran the Algerians were chanting - something "inflammatory"?) It practically amounts to censorship, and I'm incensed at the suits at Warner Bros/Sire who (I'm sure) approved the change.

I will admit it--when I first heard this album, I couldn't help but wonder exactly what I'd got myself into, or even whether I was going to like the thing. It sure had some neat stuff, that I could tell, but other things were very quirky, highly unusual, and perhaps a bit dated on the first hearing. But over time, I came to appreciate this album, and now I rate it quite highly indeed. I initially heard of it thanks to a recommendation by Pink Floyd's keyboardist Richard Wright, in a 1996 interview given to Record Collector Magazine.

Mr. Wright (who incidentally also thinks highly of Remain in Light) describes his first reaction to the album, presumably on its initial release: "This knocked me sideways when I first heard it--full of drum loops, samples and soundscapes, stuff that we really take for granted now, but which was unheard of in all but the most progressive musical circles at the time." That's really the key to getting used to this album--remembering that these were the first ventures into things we now consider ordinary. In a certain way, the roughness of parts of it gives it a unique sound that sets it far apart from the overpolished works of today. That is not to say this is *sloppy* in any way--the best was done with the technology that existed then, and for that I respect David Byrne and Brian Eno.

"There's a song called The Jezebel Spirit where there's a snippet of a preacher and the way the sounds were mixed in was so fresh it was amazing," Mr. Wright comments on a track that seems to get good reviews from most people. While I admit the track is well put together, there are times when I skip it because it can be quite unnerving! If you ask me, that exorcist sounds much more evil at times than the supposed demon he is trying to remove! I'm afraid I can't see why some reviewers are calling this track optimistic. Probably, in addition to "The Jezebel Spirit", my least listened-to track on this album is "Moonlight in Glory". However, over time, I have actually come to appreciate it even if it's not a favorite; this is why I no longer feel any heartburn with giving a full 5-star rating.

In my opinion, the three strongest tracks are the ones that draw from Middle Eastern sources for their vocals. Each of them, including the painfully short "A Secret Life", I wish had been longer! My two favorites were those with vocals sampled from Lebanese mountain singer Dunya Yusin: "The Carrier" and "Regiment". I must also point out the excellent guitar work in "Regiment", which seems to me like a precursor to the similarly enjoyable work in Speaking in Tongues' "Making Flippy-Floppy". I also noticed what seemed to be almost a sort of commentary by David Byrne upon politicians and televangelists (the latter are not slams on religion, in my opinion--rather, the *popularization* of it); the way sound clips are used seem to make both groups look a bit ridiculous at times. For instance, "Mea Culpa's" juxtaposition of the babbling politician's weasling out of whatever he did with David Byrne's listless "blah blah blah blah" makes just as much of a statement as if he'd written lyrics of that nature and sang them. I also notice that in the song "Come With Us", he makes the evangelist sound rather like some freaky cultist, which in my opinion sometimes becomes the case when the evangelist focuses upon creation of a personality cult rather than a religious organization. There are other examples than just these two, however.

Overall, I think this is a very worthwhile album if you're willing to put forth the effort that may be needed to adjust to it.

Predecessor of sound collage using found sounds, intensive samples with percussion and synths built around them. One wonders why Byrne moved on after this and the Catherine Wheel/Forest soundtracks to become the latin music impresario he is now. His genius and advant-garde sensibilities were truly rooted in works like this and his Talking Heads material. This album captured the experimental mood at the time that mostly eminated from the NYC advant garde culture of the early 80's which encompassed such audio-visual greats as Warhol & Laurie Anderson. Its influence is well known in the electronic realm and no fan or historian of the subject should be without this disc in their collection. I believe "Bush of Ghosts" is an aboriginal term meaning man's existence in the realm of the spirit world. To me, the album acts as sort of a audio tour through modern life. The found sounds featured are all catalogged in the liner notes.

The first time I ever heard about this was a music revue either in Mother Jones or Rolling Stone, in which they talked about "African Polyrhythms" of which I had no idea. Little did I know in those heady days of the early 1980's. It became one of my cult favourites and enraged or caused a major discussion amongst friends in Banff, AB. My life, for the next decade became an odyssey to find the sources of some of the Eno/Byrne collaboration.I became a music mercenary. I would go anywhere to listen to music and either record or buy it. I went to Africa shortly after which was the start of many trips there and music trips as well. I finally found a copy of the Samira Tewfik live recording that Eno/Byrne used on the album. I found it in a small cassette vendor in Luxor, 1982. I promptly lost it on the train to Cairo after it was played continuously by the Egyptians. The mysterious Lebanese mountain singer which is incorrectly labelled as Dunya Yusin is from a compilation on Philips which is just about impossible to find now (but I had a copy). There are samples of this singer on "Delerium" (1st cd), the second "Trance Planet" cd by Gol, "Exotica" cd and a few more. I guess Eno/Byrne had something right. I can't say I think much of either Byrne or Eno's work after that.Byrne got too big for his ego and Eno got ambiented out and started producing U2. They will never match up to the legendary status of "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts". They had something there, they had the pulse of the emerging sample/world music mix. Nevertheless, I am going out to buy a cd copy the next time I am in Dubai--it's a gem! I think that Loop Guru has picked up where those two have left off.

From S?o Paulo, Brazil !
This album is excellent, but a song called Qu'aran, (one of my favourite)is not on this CD ! political reasons ? I don't know.
Fortunately I have a vinyl version. If you don't know this song, try to find in vinyl, the bass line is great !

Perhaps I have a strange version of the cd, but I think the new versions of the cd now have "Qu'ran" as track 6 and "Very, Very Hungry" at track 12.

I'm glad they put Qu'ran back in the mix because it's one of my favorite songs. I also particularly like "Mea Culpa" "Regiment" "Help Me Somebody" "Come With Us" and "Very, Very Hungry"

It's very funky and odd. Not quite like anything else. I do get strange looks from people, though, when they hear preaching coming out of my cd player.

I was only recently turned on to this piece of work, but it is so important that I would recommend it anyone with any interest in contemporary music. 1981. 18 years have passed, yet tracks like Regiment are so fresh they could interleave themselves into any modern DJ mix without a hint of their vintage. Eno and Byrne have no doubt had a huge influence on modern electronica, trip hop, trance, etc., and "Bush of Ghosts" is just one example of how far ahead of their time they really were.