Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Select JULY 1991 - by David Cavanagh

ENO

Here Come The Warm Jets / Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) / Another Green World

He was a star was Eno... one of the 1970s' most watchable, listenable artists, a freaky alchemist; possibly the sound of the '70s.

He'd been kicked out of Roxy Music for banal old ego reasons in the autumn of 1973. Bryan Ferry was the writer and singer but Eno, as synth operator, instrument "treater" and outrageous looker, drew the biggest cheers. One of them had to go... exit Eno.

No one expected him to respond with the magnificent Here Come The Warm Jets. Ten songs mindblowing diversity, it showed a gift for a melancholy melody, an eccentric high-pitched vocal and a knack of giving the session heavies of the day (Fripp, Spedding, Wetton) an expert brief: "Do what thou wilt... but make it weird." A classic album, and dig the evil Bryan Ferry piss-take on Dead Finks Don't Talk.

Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974) was also excellent, especially the crazily tuneful Mother Whale Eyeless, Put A Straw Under Baby (with hilariously bad violin playing by the Portsmouth Sinfonia) and Third Uncle, dismally covered by Bauhaus in '82. Another Green World (1975) was a slight downer, with Eno seduced by Percy jones' fretless bass sound and lapsing on the lyrical content. Phil Collins muscles in on drums while John Cale does some seriously unhinged viola.

After that, he got waylaid by the ambient muse. He may never pen a decent four minute tune again, but this lot prove that the balding one ain't just a U2 producer. Go catch those warm jets!