My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

From Byrne to Byrne! The algorithm's on one!

'My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts' is a fun album title* because it seems like there's a typo, but which one? Annoying wordless album cover, unless it's a Magic Eye situation, which would be even more annoying.

*Originally a book title, apparently, which "seemed to encapsulate what this record was about". Did it??

Is this.. proto-hip hop? What is happening? I hope we avoid the elusive triple-Byrne tomorrow, there might be diminishing rebyrnes. Not quite bad enough for a 2 but it's on thin ice!

i owe u my life mr eno

I wanted to like this but this was just rough

Un sonido muy ambiental y tropical, no es lo mio

Nice and weird and strange but it never really takes off. I've tried a few times in the past but it won't stick.

The bass on a few of these tracks is so juicy. My favorite track is Regiment. However, most of the tracks lose the funk and go straight to that herky-jerky percussion that only David Byrne knows how to dance to.

Started off weird, then it got quite good in the middle, then ended even weirder than it was originally. Not quite sure what to make of this one in all honesty.

It was a pretty cool album, it started off strong then tapered off. Very conceptual. Very, Very Hungry is the last song that caught my attention because I think it used a sample that reminded me of a Red Axes song. The Jezebel Spirit and Help Me Somebody make excellent use of sampling too.

When I heard about My Life In The Bush of Ghosts I wrongly assumed it would be David Byrne doing his full on David Byrne vocal performance over the top of a Brian Eno record, and the concept got me very excited. Nothing was ever going to live up to the idea that I had in my head. Instead it's a very tasteful instrumental meeting of creative minds, a blend of the two artist’s sonic palettes. Byrne’s bouncy, eccentric instincts come up against Eno’s more patient, atmospheric ones. Together they are manipulating sounds, textures and samples from Africa and adding a psychedelic flare, leading to a unique sounding Western record.

We have different ideas nowadays about how appropriate it is for artists to draw so deeply from non-dominant cultures but it does look like Eno and Byrne made efforts to be respectful to the (admittedly sometimes unwitting) collaborators who make up the record’s samples. The results speak for themselves, with this being a curious exploration of culture, even if it's not exactly my favourite mode for either artist.

This list has already taught me how criminally under-appreciated Brian Eno is, and a collaboration with David Byrne is bound to be something worth hearing at least once.

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts was certainly a really interesting album as are most of Brian Eno's solo works. This time around, he teamed up with David Byrne which makes a lot of sense since Eno and Byrne alongside his band were practically joined at the hip during the late 70s and early 80s. This album was quite a mix of rock and electronica with some dashes of world elements as well. I thought this little mashup worked shockingly well as these songs had a real nice atmosphere top them. The very heavy bass did irritate me but not because it sounded bad (which it didn't) but actually because it constantly made me think my phone was vibrating. Despite that annoyance, this album was shockingly pretty good.
Best Song: Mea Culpa
Worst Song: Moonlight in Glory
Side note: Last album where Brian Eno is specifically credited, time to rank them
1. Ambient 1/Music For Airports
2. Here Come The Warm Jets
3. My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
4. Before And After Science
5. Another Green World

The Good: We get to find out what it’s like living in a bush…
The Bad: Not the bush we’d hoped for…
The Ugly: Nobody bothered telling us that a ghosts bush really is just a smoke screen…

Without knowing it, I had been waiting to listen to this album for a long time… this due to the colorful album cover, which, for me, deserves a 5* just because…

Then I started listening to the music, and I started scratching my head…
Then I listened to the music a second time, and I found myself in a slight trance at time.
Then I listened to the music for a third time and time flew by.

I will skip all the “start of sampling” rhetoric.
I will skip all the “what the fuck” thoughts.
I will enjoy, and to those who enjoyed as well, you understand.
To those who didn’t enjoy, maybe try it a couple more times…

5*

Really cool album, the combination of Brian Eno and David Byrne works really well. I like the world music influence on here a lot, from Indian to Arabic to African. The relatively sparse mixing works well too, it’s not too busy of an album even with all the different influences. If I had to critique it, I suppose it doesn’t really go anywhere. The songs are atypical and don’t really feel like they could be hit singles.

Absolutley not a fan of this weird singing and talking stuff

3.5/5. A question I had while listening to this collaboration between legendary producer Brian Eno and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne was “was this the first plunderphonics record?” as this album sees the two digging through a ton of samples from a ton of different sources and forging them into strange, atmospheric soundscapes.

The album is essentially the two musicians experimenting with sounds, and like all experiments not all of them necessarily fully work. But it’s still a fascinating listen and there are some great cuts on here like “Mea Culpa.”

eh bem o que eu esperava mesmo. eletrônico, maluco, experimental. o uso de samples aqui eh duma maestria absurda.
no mais, arte demais né. nao eh pra todo dia, mas eh extremamente interessante e bem feito!!

It insists upon itself, Lois.

Instrumentalexperiment mit hohem Anspuch aber langweiligem Doodle-Erlebnis.

Honestly, my least favorite Eno album so far. Ended up not finishing it because I basically already knew what I was getting (I did skip through the later tracks to make sure, but yeah, just jammy, vibey electronic music that just isn't my thing).

Regiment is a banger