David Byrne My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts CD

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
Personnel: David Byrne (guitar, synthesizer, bass guitar, drums, percussion); Brian Eno (guitar, synthesizer, bass guitar, drums, percussion); Tim Wright, Bill Laswell, Busta Cherry Jones (bass instrument); David Van Tieghem, Prairie Prince (drums, percussion); Chris Frantz, John Cooksey (drums); Jose Rossy (congas, agogo); Steve Scales (congas, percussion); Mingo Lewis (bata); Dennis Keeley (bodhran).
A pioneering work for countless styles connected to electronics, ambience, and Third World music, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts expands on the fourth-world concepts of Hassell/Eno work with a whirlwind 45 minutes of worldbeat/funk-rock (with the combined talents of several percussionists and bassists, including Bill Laswell, Tim Wright, David van Tieghem, and Talking Heads' Chris Frantz) that's also heavy on the samples -- from radio talk-show hosts, Lebanese mountain singers, preachers, exorcism ceremonies, Muslim chanting, and Egyptian pop, among others. It's also light years away from the respectful, preservationist angles of previous generations' field recorders and folk song gatherers. The songs on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts present myriad elements from around the world in the same jumbled stew, without regard for race, creed, or color. As such, it's a tremendously prescient record for the future development of music during the 1980s and '90s. ~ John Bush
Eno was a key figure in the development of Talking Heads, producing some of their most innovative albums. This collaboration with head Head Byrne built on the sonic ground the two had already broken together via their well established working relationship. The pair couldn't have known how influential MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS would be in the next two decades.
Deconstructing the avant-funk of the Heads' REMAIN IN LIGHT, Byrne and Eno recorded polyrhythmic backing tracks similar to that effort. Instead of creating lyrics or melodies to lay over them, the duo turned to "found sounds" and voices, looping everything from radio talk show conversations to Muslim chants atop the rhythm bed, before anyone even knew what a sampler was. The subsequent impact on everything, from electronica to World music to whatever Bill Laswell is doing this week, was inestimable. The most important thing is that all this high-minded studio wizardry works on a very immediately satisfying level.Entertainment Weekly (p.87) - "[T]he remastered GHOSTS feels haunting, hypnotic, and fresh 25 years later." -- Grade: A-
Uncut (p.119) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "Byrne and Eno's collaboration drips with emotional intensity....The feelings don't come directly from them but from the found voices of Pentecostal preachers and Algerian Muslims that the duo harvested from American radio and ethnic field recordings."
The Wire (p.56) - "[I]t's the unidentified voices seeping in from the haunted boundaries of American talk radio that capture our attention and that now seem to speak to us about another, still uncharted world."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.122) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "The disturbingly funky exotic stew that resulted was mind-bending in its day and remains so now."
NME (Magazine) (9/25/93, p.19) - Ranked #36 in NME's list of the 50 Greatest Albums Of The '80s.