Panther's picks - Brian Eno: Here Come The Warm Jets - 1973
While still hanging around as part of Roxy Music for a few more months at least, oddball keyboards genius Brian Eno brought along Roxy members Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay to help him record this completely leftfield album that slipped under the radar in 1973, despite the Roxy associations.
King Crimson's Robert Fripp is on the album too. The songs are quirky and downright weird at times, but they are always catchy and poppy. Eno is on vocals and he doesn't have the best voice, you have to say, but it has a reedy, whiny punky quality that was way ahead of its time. Yes, it is an avant-garde creation, but a very accessible one. Its sound, however, despite remastering, is decidedly muffled at times, however. Maybe that adds to its strange appeal.
The album didn't do very well in 1973. It was just too bizarre. It may well have been more successful in 1981 but that is the thing with works that were ahead of their time. You have to listen to it a few times to appreciate it, however. You hear little bits in the sound here and there that you missed first time around.
Needles In The Camel's Eye is a Velvet Underground-influenced number with a dense, murky sound with undermines the track somewhat. Eno's vocals aren't great either. It still has an appeal, though.
There is also a VU vibe to the bizarrely-titled The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch which has Eno adopting a quirky, high-pitched David Byrne-style post-punky vocal years before the sub-genre existed. The funky guitar line is one that Talking Heads would use a lot too, early in their career. You have to say that this is way ahead of its time. Check out those odd piercing noises that populate the track. Innovative Eno at his best.
Baby's On Fire is another one that fits the post-punk description. It is a genuinely infectious oddity. It is full of of strange synthy backing, a great Robert Fripp guitar solo and addictive percussion, along with Eno's hammy vocals. For me, it is the best cut on the album.
Cindy Tell Me has a Velvet Underground-inspired title and more Lou Reed influence is all over it. Once again, you can really imagine how Talking Heads surely knew of this record while listening to it. So much of it can be heard in their first album. It has some excellent synth parts swirling around too. The lyrics are not without a certain tongue-in-cheek humour, either. Driving Me Backwards features some beguiling guitar-keyboard parts and mysterious wailing vocals. The backing sounds Joy Division-like in places.
On Some Faraway Beach is almost like a Groove Armada "chill-out" thing - an indistinct-sounding instrumental that drifts along without ever getting anywhere until it suddenly builds up into a grandiose Teutonic climax, like a prototype for early Ultravox. Finally, three minutes in, just when you least expect it, a mournful Eno vocal arrives. There are hidden depths to this interesting number. It is so Velvet Underground again, I have to say. Blank Frank is so 1978-79 it could be Public Image Ltd. It mixes a sort of Bo Diddley rock 'n' roll drum beat with the sort of sounds PIL would come up with five yeas or so later.
Dead Finks Don't Talk has a solid, mid-pace rock beat and some haughty spoken vocals from Eno. It ends with some incongruous, deafening feedback that sort of spoils it slightly. Some Of Them Are Old has hints of The Beatles at their most idiosyncratic. The Hawaiian guitar sound at the end is, I am sure, Phil Manzanera. He used the same sound on a Roxy 'B' side, Hula Kula. Here Come The Warm Jets is an instrumental (with occasional vocals) that surely inspired Ultravox.
I remember just not "getting" this album back then. Although weirdness was all around in the whole avant-garde arm of glam rock this was just too weird. In many ways it still is. There's no getting away from it, this is a very peculiar, eccentric and totally unconventional album.
