My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

I was kind of expecting more from these two's collaboration. Nothing really captured me.

Really impressive for its time and had held up well over the years.

This album was like The Postal Service only when it was Ben Gibbard’s turn to record vocals he phoned it in and just recorded himself flipping through channels on the tv. There’s some really interesting music on here. It’s just ruined by pointless samples. Just because something was “innovative” does not mean it was a good idea. I have nothing against sampling, when done right it can be very cool. This was not very cool.

I've listened to this a few times over the years, and have always found it very intriguing. I imagine it was very ahead of its time with the number of samples involved, and I think a lot of the experiments turned out well. However, it's not quite a 5 star for me, because I don't find myself returning to it that often. Definitely worth a few listens though.

More of Eno's garbage music for artsy hipsters. When I saw that this was a collaboration album between Eno and the equally fucked David Byrne, I knew I was in for a treat, and what a treat it was.... African chanting, sampled voices, theramin work, scratches, boops, beeps, and other irritating noises all packaged as one dumpster fire of a record.

Absolute dogshit of an album. Really dumb, unoriginal album cover, and a nonsensical album title. I'm not on near enough drugs to even begin to enjoy this trash. Waste of an hr of my time (which I had to break up into sections because I couldn't stand to listen to the whole album all at once).

Favourite songs: Help Me Somebody, Regiment

Least favourite songs: Moonlight in Glory, Very Very Hungry, America is Waiting, The Carrier, A Secret Life, Vocal Out-Takes (why the fuck was this even on the record?), New Feet

1/5

Sinceramente al autor del libro le gustaba Brian Eno y por su cara decide que todo lo que haga el nota debes escucharlo antes de morir. Como ya he dicho antes, su música me gusta pero esto es complejo que sea imprescindible o para todos los públicos. Según la wikipedia este album fue pionero a la hora de usar samples. Me he guardado The Jezebel spirit. Es más interesante de de lo que esperaba.

At the very least, this album is 10-12 years ahead of its time. It was a breakthrough step in the way samples were used, and it also exposed more people to a wider variety of world music. It sounds incredibly modern compared to much of the music of its era, and yet, it also sounds like a sort of musical fanfiction. It's a noble experiment, and one which significantly broadened the possibilities for the musical palette, but it largely comes across like demo tracks for Talking Heads songs with samples of speech put in place of where lyrics might be. There's the core of a song there, but somehow it's not satisfying in the same way. It's like ordering the appetizer combo and just eating that for dinner instead of an entree. I do still enjoy this record, just as I would enjoy eating an appetizer combo for dinner, but, despite being a big fan of both Brian Eno and David Byrne, this is not one I come back to often.

I was fully expecting to dislike this based on the overview and genre, but it's remarkably listenable for the most part. It's definitely avant-garde, but doesn't feel pretentious in the same way similar albums do. At least, again, for the most part. There's clear musical melodies and themes here. I wouldn't really come back to it, but I quite liked it overall.

*S o u n d C o l l a g e*

I love both Eno and Byrne, and I like to put this album on every so often, but it's also not the best work either of them was doing around this time

I mean, if you're going to do a musical thought experiment, I can't think of too many artists that would be better to do with than David Byrne.

Listened to the 3 songs NOT on Apple Music Canada first, “Regiment”, “Qu’Ran”, & “The Carrier”. (2/3 of those songs were apparently cleared of copyright issues and reinstated on streaming services. Not so.)
Liked all 3, but all felt transitory. Kind of like how “Any Colour You Like” glues 2 other songs together in DSOTM.

Upon finishing the rest of the album, that’s just how most songs are here. The mix of organic percussion, cut up vocals & cold synths can be really eerie (Mountain of Needles). Lived up to the “Ghosts” in the album title.

HL: “The Jezebel Spirit”, “Very, Very, Hungry”, “The Carrier”

October 28, 2022

Not really music, more like a showreel for advanced production techniques. Could be used as background music for some sort of sci-fi movie set in the future, where the director doesn't want the music to distract from the dialogue.
Interesting, but only rarely enjoyable, not one I am likely to come back to.

Still far from the worst album on this list (*cough* Nico *cough*)

One of Eno's best collaborations, with David Byrne and the entire continent of Africa adding a vital funk injection.

esse brian já passou por aqui ein..

america is calling is cool, mea culpa sucks. The album is a cool expirament with sampling. Jezebel spirit is a rad track. A secret life is really rubbing me the wrong way