Simone Appolloni's Album Reviews
Long before being known as the creator of "Ambient" music and a solo artist devoted to technology, Brian Peter George Eno had been keyboardist/effect wizard for Roxy Music, which he left in 1973 because he couldn't bring his contributions to the band due to Ferry's musical direction. As a result, he went solo, releasing (No Pussyfooting), in collaboration with King Crimson's Robert Fripp, while he was still in Roxy Music. His proper solo debut, 1974's Here Come the Warm Jets, was actually recorded with a sling of guest performers, including Fripp himself, members of Roxy Music and renowned session musicians like Chris Speeding and Busta Jones. According to Eno, musicians were directed to play using gestures, rather than standard musical notation
The resulting album is obviously reminiscent of Roxy Music, but with a few quirk elements of its own. "Needles in the Camel's Eye" starts things off on a joyous, energetic tone with three-chord wonder predating Ramones-like Pop Punk with multi-tracked half-shouted vocals and dissonant inserts, "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" (what an unhappy senseless title) has prominent use of phaser and harmonic generator during its barely-recognizable solo guitar section, and
"Cindy Tells Me" is a quieter ballad in pure British slapstick style. Most of the other cuts feature similarly repetitive riffing with far more "weird-sounding" instrumentation, rather than proper Pop hooks: of these, "Driving Me Backwards" comes out spooky, thanks to its piano droning and sadistic vocals.
Devoid of "songs", rather based on drones with sound effects, the album doesn't sound as experimental in terms of sonic engineering, showing its nature as a 70's post-psichedelia work with weak production, which doesn't help making any of these "experiments" sound more gripping or something more convincing than mere parody of Funk ("Blank Frank") or Country/honky tonk slide guitar ("Some of Them Are Old"). Not enough weird and with most of its melodic qualities penalized by unconventional artistic direction: a mixed bag that still sounds more listenable than most of the stuff recorded by Roxy Music during their activity.
Highlights: "Needles in the Camel's Eye", "Here Come the Warm Jets".
The resulting album is obviously reminiscent of Roxy Music, but with a few quirk elements of its own. "Needles in the Camel's Eye" starts things off on a joyous, energetic tone with three-chord wonder predating Ramones-like Pop Punk with multi-tracked half-shouted vocals and dissonant inserts, "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" (what an unhappy senseless title) has prominent use of phaser and harmonic generator during its barely-recognizable solo guitar section, and
"Cindy Tells Me" is a quieter ballad in pure British slapstick style. Most of the other cuts feature similarly repetitive riffing with far more "weird-sounding" instrumentation, rather than proper Pop hooks: of these, "Driving Me Backwards" comes out spooky, thanks to its piano droning and sadistic vocals.
Devoid of "songs", rather based on drones with sound effects, the album doesn't sound as experimental in terms of sonic engineering, showing its nature as a 70's post-psichedelia work with weak production, which doesn't help making any of these "experiments" sound more gripping or something more convincing than mere parody of Funk ("Blank Frank") or Country/honky tonk slide guitar ("Some of Them Are Old"). Not enough weird and with most of its melodic qualities penalized by unconventional artistic direction: a mixed bag that still sounds more listenable than most of the stuff recorded by Roxy Music during their activity.
Highlights: "Needles in the Camel's Eye", "Here Come the Warm Jets".
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