Eno/Byrne's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts Reissued?

How is this album a more "intelligent" use of world music elements?

-- Tim Ellison (thefriendlyfriendlybubbl...), April 26th, 2006.

This is only tangentially related, but Jon Pareles and David Lewiston (Nonesuch Explorer series dude) were just on Soundcheck on WNYC talking about what "world music" is and George Harrison figured heavily in the discussion. The really interesting bits, though, are the parts where Lewiston talks about his first trip to Bali to record gamelan music:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2006/05/10

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WSwpm0N8yMA/T8TAFLnG1mI/AAAAAAAAANY/tEZrq_u-Wxw/s1600/scan0001.jpg

http://mywalloftapes.blogspot.com/2012/05/life.html

still hissy, mastered very quiet, but still, better fidelity than the Ghosts bootleg

Unfortunately, that's gone.

I recently pulled this out again as I got interested in finding out how Eno was using his AMS DMX delay box to do the cut-up vocals on this (that's been unsuccessful).

But a few days ago, I found an interview from 1980 with Eno in which he talks about MLitBoG a bit -- and plays a few rough mixes he'd done of "America Is Waiting" (sans vocals, which he calls "Garbage Disco"), "Mea Culpa" (just the synth arpeggio and vocals), and a very early version of "The Carrier" (I think -- I get some of those tracks on the second side mixed up). Pretty interesting stuff:

http://ubu.com/sound/eno.html

oh, cool, think i've just heard an excerpt of that interview. thanks!

Rough mixes supposedly from a cassette Byrne gave to a guy when he was living in Alphabet City in the late 70s/early 80s. By far the best quality boots I've heard of this material.

http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=1121

Holy shit, this sound pretty familiar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIas_yxduDw

Admittedly late but what am I missing here, Josh? Is that supposed to be a groove Eno and Byrne appropriated?

Kind of reminiscent of Regiment?

No resemblance at all. A groove's a groove's a groove.

So this is being reissued again, on vinyl this time, with additional bonus tracks:

http://hhhhappy.com/my-life-in-the-bush-of-ghosts-set-for-vinyl-reissue-with-new-surprises/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/aug/11/better-late-than-never-how-brian-eno-and-david-byrne-finally-laid-a-musical-ghost-to-rest

that's really interesting, thanks!

The Rolling Stone article mentioned towards the end is fascinating as well:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/my-life-in-the-bush-of-ghosts-252823/

I was expecting "sampling isn't real music" but it's a lot more nuanced, and encapsulates all of the criticisms that were levelled at world music many years later. Eno and Byrne just brush it off in their article.

So, I guess people from the past weren't a bunch of stupid racists after all. It also reminds me that I haven't read anything at all by Marshall McLuhan. He was huge before I was born, but when I was young it was all No Logo and whatever else you were supposed to pretend to read to be hip. McLuhan was a bit old-hat back then. I learn from the internet that he wasn't a real Marshall. That was just his name.

I never thought that Pareles review was able to land a convincing blow. Like: "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts does make me wonder, though, how Byrne or Eno would react if Dunya Yusin spliced together a little of 'Animals' and a bit of 'The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch,' then added her idea of a suitable backup. Does this global village have two-way traffic?"... Is he really suggesting he thinks they'd be upset? Seems like they would each have died to hear what that would have sounded like!

No Dunya Younes albums on Spotify

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR715ql1-Fk

that is awesome