Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets (1973) (aac, 128kbps)


Whenever a new U2 record comes out, I can't help but think of Brian Eno. Oh sure, he's influenced an entire universe of musicians beyond the boys from Dublin, but when I hear their music created since The Unforgettable Fire, I hear Eno. Sometimes that is because he is present for the recordings, but more it is his love of simplicity. Even when he is not sprinkling his influence, Eno's perfectly simple and achingly beautiful chord progressions are still there.

This record is where it really begins. Eno has been active in Roxy Music, but he hasn't had a chance to run the show yet. Keep in mind, the traditional idea of being a 'musician' didn't apply to Eno. He doesn't have natural ability as a vocalist. His technical skills are limited on the seemingly endless number of musical instruments he has access to. And this is 1973! Punk is not really in sight just yet. But there's Eno, making it cool to kind of bang on the instruments. More importantly, he's making it more accessible.

Even though prog and fusion are really just becoming a dominant force in popular music, Eno is moving on to the next thing - not so much because he's a visionary (although he clearly is), but rather because he couldn't really play with those guys. The genius of Eno's early carrier was his ability (out of necessity) to take a player of extraordinary technical skill like Fripp out of his comfort zone. The result will often be something unexpected.

Eno always knew that you can say more with less. But he doesn't sacrifice drama and melody. You can hear on monster hits like 'With Or Without You' and 'Bad'. And for the first time, you could hear it here.

1. "Needles in the Camel's Eye" (Eno, Phil Manzanera) 3:11
2. "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" 3:04
3. "Baby's on Fire" 5:19
4. "Cindy Tells Me" (Eno, Manzanera) 3:25
5. "Driving Me Backwards" 5:12
6. "On Some Faraway Beach" (Eno, Manzanera) 4:36
7. "Blank Frank" (Eno, Robert Fripp) 3:37
8. "Dead Finks Don't Talk" (arr. Paul Thompson, Busta Jones, Nick Judd, Eno) 4:19
9. "Some of Them Are Old" 5:11
10. "Here Come the Warm Jets" 4:04

The link is in the comments.

Update: Thanks to Anonymous for pointing out a dead link. This should work now.

3 comments:

MPomy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

http://lix.in/-441782
HostRocket.com
404 - PAGE NOT FOUND

PS. Cool blog. Most links have worked BTW ( and multi thanks for those others ) but this one seems a dud.

MPomy said...

http://lix.in/-4bc427