Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets

[joshthevegan]

When most people think of Brian Eno today, they think of him in terms of the many albums that he has produced for U2, or his time in Roxy Music, or his famous collaborations with David Byrne (both with the Talking Heads, and during Byrne's solo career), or maybe the fact that he is often cited as one of the innovators of ambient music. Amidst all these fantastic successes, it is sometimes easy to overlook the solo albums that he released in the mid-'70's.

Continuing disagreements with Roxy Music's lead singer, Bryan Ferry, led Eno to leave the band after the release of For Your Pleasure to persue a solo career, which started with the fantastic Here Come The Warm Jets. This album is a fantastic blend of so many styles it is simply impossible to pin down exactly what genre it fits into, other than one of its own. Elements of glam rock, art rock, '60's British pop music, avant garde 20th Century compositions, and even some American traditional blues all come together seemlessly in this release.

The album opens with the psychadelic bohemoth that is "Needles In The Camel's Eye", dips into the insane with the Bradburyian-circus sound of "Driving Me Backwards", floats to the sublime with "On Some Faraway Beach", prances through pop in "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch", and solemnly offers, "Some Of Them Are Old". Each composition is well-crafted theater pop, dipped liberaly in LSD, and finished with a gloss of atonal sound scapes.

The recording of Here Come The Warm Jets took only twelve days. Eno helped to "conduct" the performers by dancing and using hand gestures to elicit various indescribable sounds that he desired. The musicians present at the session in cluded all the members of Roxy Music (save Bryan Ferry), and members of King Crimson, Pink Fairies, Hawkwind and others.

Here Come The Warm Jets is an album that, despite the technological limitations of the day, and the high standards expected by Eno, sounds timeless, and innovative and futuristic even today, over 35 years later.

Here Come The Warm Jets - 8 out of 10