On the surface of it the record sounds like a holiday project as bandleader David Byrne and producer of the previous two Talking Heads albums got together for some fun with funk and tape manipulation. An uncomfortable amount of rock journalism from the time congratulated the pair for having discovered Africa, referring to the great musical debt they owed to that continent from top to bottom. It was released after Remain in Light because of the extensive clearance of the vocal recordings used. That was the other thing: all the tracks were musical but instead of either Byrne or Eno fronting the mic, it was what the world would come to easily identify as samples that provided the tonsil work. From Lebanese shepherds, pop stars from old Asia Minor, and screaming preachers to crewcutted DJs and exorcists, the record gave us slap after slap in the face through the culture shock alone.
But why? Throbbing Gristle had years on this with their variously funny and terrifying use of found sound. Yeah, but you could dance to this and people did. What about hip hop? The masters of the turntable had been leaving them gaping on the dancefloor from the mid '70s. Well, in that pre-web world you had to know about the stuff and the elevation of your profile did more for you than the quality or originality of your stuff. Not that Byrne and Eno were sponging towards a Bethlehem of mediocrity, Bush of Ghosts is mighty, it's just that the average punter had so little background at the time. Hip hop was on the verge of worldwide breakthrough. The tapeloopers like TG would not quite surface as so much of what they did was attack but the blend of dance and trigger exploded at the other end of the decade, rising from the ashes of rock as a developable medium. Anyway....
So, when America is Waiting strutted out of the speakers in early '81 it felt strange, alluring and worrying at the same time. Why did he keep saying that? The funk 101 orchestra behind it just kept grooving on. Until you hear it a few times the album is really just that with a few breaks in pace and technique but those three and a half minutes pretty much say it for the approach. But then that's like saying seen one jet engine, seen 'em all. However deeply derivative this was (and, considering who was doing it, it was clearly a lift in approach) the discipline of putting it all in one place and releasing it under the pedigree of proven innovators guaranteed it a place on campus radio and in the stacks of uni students in share houses. This brash boy's own experimental funk was played at almost every party I went to for most of the year.
So, while nothing from it was going to get mimed on Countdown (or even subjected to the robot moves of the Countdown Dancers) it was preceded by the album it facilitated, Remain in Light, which had a hit single with a video that still looks good. The elastic management of moods and tone add up to a record that rewards the repeated listen with depth and range however samey the initial impression is. Borrowed, certainly, but also way-clearing.
I'm resisting description of individual tracks here as there is too much to describe. Instead of that I'll suggest you get in front of it if you haven't before and if you have do it again. despite the old chorused bass and vintage electronica the thing stands.
I came down to Brisbane after the break in Townsville with a clock radio my Dad bought me. He was pleased that I'd got into uni and concerned about me missing classes. I did use it. One setting was the alarm which didn't have a volume control so sounded like a foghorn in your ear and was unignorable by anyone else you lived with. The other setting was radio and it had an FM switch. Until I left for Melbourne years later that dial was set to either 4ZZZ or 4PBS. Nothing else.
Early in the academic year I had an 8.30 tutorial. In first year these were invaluable classes as you got to discuss any issues about the course and were great for picking up information about what you needed for assignments or seminars etc. To get to this appointment I needed to get the 37 bus into town and time it to minimise the wait for the long ride out to the campus. I had a choice of two buses that left from stops that were blocks away from each other so, if I missed one I had to think about how to get to the next one. All that travel time (over an hour each way) meant that I had to be showered, fed and out the door by a tidy 7.00 to get the bus on Milton Road. That meant I woke to whatever was playing at 4ZZZ at dawn. One morning it was Eno and Byrne's The Jezebel Spirit.
It was back announced as including the voice of an unidentified New York exorcist. The combination of the pre-dawn dark, the coldly confident funk groove, and the sinister sound of the voice which variously calls, whispers and, worst of all, laughs mixed in with what sounds like the huffing breath of a possessed woman. It was on my mind for weeks.
The thing was, though, that like every such thing (Eraserhead, Throbbing Gristle and the film The Exorcist) I was attracted to it. Attracted the same way I'd been at eleven when I'd borrow tomes of collected ghost stories from the local library. I never genuinely believed in such things but the scare from them, the creeping threat of them beckoned me. The funk and the darkness in one track bled into the others. Regiment was played a lot on ZZZ for some reason and I got another spook for the mix of shepherd's call and Talking Heads style groove. The enigma of it beckoned. I'm still like this. I was so drawn to Gaspar Noe's severe film Irreversible that I spoiled it for myself just to make sure I wasn't going to see anything too bad (that was the last time I did that although I almost did it a few years later with the mighty and incomparable Martyrs).
I never owned a copy of this at the time. The one I did get was different but I was unaware why until I read the wikipedia entry for the record. The track Qu'ran which features readings from the holy book was removed following protest and replaced with Very Very Hungry. While this is less than a pure experience as far as the intent of the artists it does carry the advantage of being a much better track. If you want a copy with the original tracks you can haunt second hand vinyl shops or the first CD release. If not, just grab a current release and Youtube the missing track. Feeling adventurous? Find a download of the multitracks of two of the songs and make you own mix, for legals!
That last bit, using the available tech to make a point along with the one about free use (Creative Commons) goes not just to the music on this record but the cover art. The great Peter Saville, knee deep in mockups for Factory Records cut shapes out of gels, stuck them to a video monitor and pointed a camera at that, creating visual feedback. Swish and moderne, what? Well, it was.
But here's the thing: like so much of the best of this era (or any) My Life in the Bush of Ghosts for all its innovation and aesthetic daring, sounds like the year of its release. It sounds like 1981. It was one thing in a population of things that heralded a new age of expression that bent technology for its purposes and broke into more discovery. That, like all moments of discovery, just gets absorbed by the market before the next flareup from the gutters and that's what makes it timeless (not the music or the approach, just the repeated history of its fate). A greater and more objective value that puts this disc beside The Whitle Album, Joy Divisions' Closer, or Nevermind, is durability. It's still good.
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