Originally conceived as "a series of recordings based on an imaginary culture", My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts finds Talking Heads frontman David Byrne...... more
Originally conceived as "a series of recordings based on an imaginary culture", My Life In The
Bush Of Ghosts finds Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and studio egghead Brian Eno marking time between 1979s Fear Of Music and the following years Remain In Light with a machetes-out excursion into the dense, unexplored ethnic wilderness. Recorded with a cast of virtuoso players that includes bassist Bill Laswell and New York percussionist David Van Tieghem, its an album that blurs the boundaries between African rhythms and the electronic avant-garde, a feat made possible thanks to Enos cutting-edge studio tool the sampler. Its this equipment that provides the "voice" of the record. A series of disembodied voices, in fact - Arabian singers, raging US talk-show hosts, Christian preacher men, field recordings not just dropped into the music but immersed in it, until its impossible to sense the join. Stiffly funky and reliant on
electronics, its a defiantly modern record, which paradoxically, dates it somewhat next to Byrnes next work, Talking Heads immortal Remain In Light. It remains a fascinating milestone in experimentation, however, its foundation loosing a tremor that can still be heard in everything from Mobys Play to the teeming ranks of modern hip-hop.--Louis Pattison
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