Brian Eno, David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts (CD 1993)

Some people say that this is perhaps the record that has influenced contemporary rockrelated music the most during the 80s (released in 1981), and maybe the 90s too for that matter. They must be aiming at the fact that it was one of the first records to combine sampled sequences from different medias, and then add rhythmbased experimental rockmusic to it.
Brian Eno and David Byrne is the two leading figures of this project and those who know David Byrne from Talking Heads also recognize his funky restless nerve in this music too. Brian Eno is a far more cool and scientific artist, but we also know his earlier projects like 'Another green world' and 'Before and after science' co-operating with Phil Collins, experimenting with rhytmfigures as well. The new about this record is the samples from different artists like arabs playing and singing ethninc music, voices from media programs (radio/television?)sampled etc. The cover of the record depicts some bizarre figures looking like crosses or torsos and it's a photo shot directly onto a TV-screen. It's a display or a reflection of Andy Wharols popart, the media realty made of dots (artificial reality) in contrast to true reality to be more specific.
The record can be regarded as a rock art album and it is revolutionary in it's concept. As a milestoe in the development of modern rock music, it's definately a gem. U2 is a group that must have been inspired by this production, when making their albums 'Zooropa' and 'Pop'.
There is a minus and that is the fact that it's not the record you want to listen to when you crave for a No1 rocktune. The nearest you get a radio/dance hit is maybe 'Jezibel Spirit' a cobination of hypnotic rhythm and a diabolic exsorist shouting and driving those devils out of the flesh of the listener. The signature of David Byrne is written all over this track, and the same can be said about the majority of the other ones. Enos best sole contribution is perhaps the opening track: 'America is waiting', a piece of music that might be regarded as a critic or parody of Amercan imperialism /militarism. Together with all the arabic influenced samples this is a record that should be relevant in even todays media reality. The record ends with classical Eno art: 'Mountain of Needles', not unlike Eno's single contribution to the soundtrack of the film 'Dune'.
If you like experimental and politically motivated music made during the 80s by some of the gurus of this genre, this is a 'must have'.