UNDER THE NEEDLE

Byrne & Eno in the Bush of Ghosts

By Steve DelNero

BRIAN ENO/DAVID BYRNE-MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS (Sire SRK 6093)

A lot of gays were fans of glitter and new wave in the 1970's before these styles of music were watered down by the recording and radio executives to make them more popular.

Avant garde music seems to attract a fairly large number of gay fans, who then move on to something else when everyone else has seen the light.

(Have you noticed what has happened to Gary Numan's once exclusively-gay lyrics?)

If all you know about the group Talking Heads is its recording of "Take Me to the River," or if all you know about Brian Eno is that he was the one in the make-up and feather boa in Roxy Music in 1973, you had better catch up. We are supposed to be ahead of everybody else, aren't we?

The new collection of David Byrne and Brian Eno (leaders of Talking Heads), My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, is like nothing you've heard before. The basic concept of the album, Eno has said, is experimental: to use "found" vocals rather than to compose any original lyrics.

It was originally conceived as a solo album for Eno rather than as

a collaboration. What has resulted is a new kind of musican outstanding achievement for Byrne and Eno together.

They have taken voices from the radio (mostly religious or political), as well as vocalists from Africa and Asia, and have added a dense layer of noise. The result is not only interesting to listen to, but also danceable. As in some reggae and disco, vocals are only used as instrumentation, not for any statements that the words might contain.

The album opens with "America is Waiting," which features a piercing guitar and a heavy rhythm section, against the voice of a moralistic radio phone-in caller who warns that we have "no will whatsoever, absolutely no sense of honor (or) integrity. I haven't seen one citizen stand up and say, 'Well, what are you gonna do?""

Fans will be able to tell within five seconds that this is the hardest rocking LP that either Byrne or Eno has been involved with in a long time. The bouncy beat could easily make this a hit.

The next cut, "Mea Culpa," has a vocal which is heavily synthesized, looped, and at times speeded up and slowed down. It ends up sounding something like a tribal chant. The texture of the

song, however, is so dense that it sounds closer to Dieter Moebius of Cluster than Talking Heads.

Since Eno has recorded two albums with Cluster, it is no surprise to find tracks on the album which are slow, quiet, and restful. Fans of Cluster will want to listen to "Come With Us" or "Mountain of Needles," which sound like outtakes from After the Heat. If you like exotic tropical lazy rhythm such as Eno's work with Jon Hassell, you might like "A Secret Life."

The most moving track on the album is "The Jezebel Spirit." The most danceable number, it is also the most hypnotic. The beat is electronic disco, with the synthesizer sounding like brass instruments, and another very emphatic rhythm section. The vocalist is an exorcist performing his rité:

"Come, come out. Jezebel, come out now! Go ahead, out in the name of Jesus! Come out, Destruction! Come out, Grief! Jezebel, you are going to listen to me, Jezebel. Go ahead, sister!"

With the exception of one song, all the vocals were added after the instrumental tracks. This experiment in creating a new type of musical context is surprisingly successful.

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