Saturday, May 06, 2006

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

I bought the latest reissue of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts a couple of weeks back. It was one of the first LPs I ever bought that wasn't just straight up punk or rock, back then. It really opened up a floodgate of perception where music was concerned with me. Not only did it spark a fascination with world music and ethnomusicology, but it was also the first place I'd heard of Bill Laswell. I was already a big Eno fan, despite not owning much of his work (it helped that he got lots of spin-time over at KBOO). My life is on my desert island list of music, right alongside Material's Hallucination Engine and a few others.
I'm pretty happy with the reissue. The mix seems crisper and deeper than the subsequent CD reissue. This seems to be a modern Eno trademark; I find the bottom end of his mixes to be huge lately- his last album, despite not having a lot of percussion, really moves a lot of air.
And the added outtakes are quite nice indeed. Theres a nifty video for Mea Culpa by Bruce Conner, as well.
Lots of discussion was made about the decision not to replace the track Qu'ran back into the album. It was dropped after some early vinyl runs due to the possibility of offending Muslims as it includes chanting of Surahs of the Qu'ran accompanied with music - a no no in the Islamic world. It was replaced by another song in all subsequent reissues. Lots of blogs have been making the song available for those curious.
Here's my rip from my 1st pressing:
Qu'ran.mp3
Curiously, no one that I know of is offering this one:
Garbage Disco.mp3
It's an early draft of America is Waiting, appearing in a stripped down, accapella mode that Eno was playing for people as My Life was in the demo stage.
The album site promises a remix/download site wherein crafty fans can download mix tracks and create their own mixes under a Creative Commons license, but it hasn't been put up yet.
I really recommend that you buy My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, as the packaging, text and extra material are all top shelf.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

thanks!

I love this track!

sad to see this deleted from the re-ish.

11:59 AM  

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