Genre : Pop,Electronica,Singer-Songwriter
Website
Tracklist1. Home
2. My Big Nurse
3. I Feel My Stuff
4. Everything That Happens
5. Life Is Long
6. The River
7. Strange Overtones
8. Wanted For Life
9. One Fine Day
10. Poor Boy
11. The Lighthouse
Towards the end of David Byrne's sleevenotes for the recent reissue of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - the album the former Talking Heads singer made with the band's producer and mentor, Brian Eno, in 1981 - he describes the duo encountering a novel problem. The vocals on the album had been taken from Arabic pop singles, ethnographic recordings and late-night talk-shows and evangelists' sermons they had taped from the radio. Now they had to get permission to use them, which proved to be an arduous task.
"No one knew what the hell we were doing," recalled Byrne. "The record sat on the shelf while the phone calls and faxes went back and forth." Some people refused to give their consent, which meant that tracks had to be changed. The album's release was postponed by a year. If the duo hadn't actually invented sampling - you could argue long into the night about whether innumerable earlier experiments with tape loops count - they certainly seem to have invented the idea of sample clearance.
Eno has described one track, I Feel My Stuff, as "unlike any other song I've ever heard before", which suggests, a little improbably, that he has never heard any trip-hop. That's not to say that I Feel My Stuff isn't a good song, one that shifts constantly and intriguingly over six and a half minutes, from fluttering abstract piano and shuffling breakbeats made up of vocal samples, via a feedback-heavy guitar solo to a rather proggy final riff. It's just to suggest that anyone hoping for ground to be broken once more might consider gently downscaling their expectations. If they do, they'll find plenty to like about this album, which seems to be less about venturing boldly forth into the unknown than retreating gently into a less complicated and troubled past.
No comments:
Post a Comment