here come the warm jets

Brian Eno lent assistance to the object with the oblique strategies and avante-glam pop experiments of his solo debut.  Eno had left Roxy Music over creative differences with Bryan Ferry after their second album 'For Your Pleasure' and collaborated with Robert Fripp on an album of ambient music '(No Pussyfooting)' before starting work on 'Here Come the Warm Jets'.  

The album was produced by Eno over twelve days at Majestic Studios in London with engineer Derek Chandler; and mixed at Air and Olympic Studios by Eno and engineer Chris Thomas.   The sessions featured Brian Eno on vocals, synthesizer, guitar, keyboards, treatments, and instrumentation; Chris Spedding, Phil Manzanera, and Robert Fripp on guitar;  Simon King, Marty Simon, and Paul Thompson on percussion; Bill MacCormick, John Wetton, Chris Thomas, and Busta Jones on bass guitar; Paul Rudolph on guitar and bass guitar; Nick Judd and Nick Kool & the Koolaids on keyboards; Andy Mackay on keyboards and saxophone septet; Sweetfeed on backing vocals; and Lloyd Watson on slide guitar.  

Eno would expound:    "Vocal techniques. That's something I've never even thought about. Why, I propose the question to myself do people sing certain ways at certain times in history? Why should I want to sing through my nose?...What I like is when you get a combination of something that's very turned-down and dark and sinister, but not dramatic – very underhand and almost inaudible, as opposed to the kind of aggression that people like The Floyd use, which is very obvious assault. Iggy Pop does it as well.  I like taking something that's played down – low-key – contrasting with a voice that's very anguished, making the whole sound grotesque and aggressive in a pathetic and laughable way. 'Baby's On Fire' starts out as though it's going to be very sinister, but has very ordinary words, sung with an incredible amount of passion...I'm always prone to do things very quickly, which has distinct advantages – you leave all the mistakes in, and the mistakes always become interesting. The Velvet Underground, for example, are the epitome of mistake-filled music, and it makes the music very subtle and beautiful.   Any feature can be the most important one – as long as there is one important feature. There are so many bands who present you with a large number of well-done features- none of which are important.   I think that bands like Yes and E.L.P., even The Floyd who everyone's saying are the beginning of something new and exciting – the new rock tradition – are just tying up a lot of loose ends.   They're finishing something off which is a useful function, but not one which should be confused with breaking new territory...I think that until the turn of the century, art was always the object – the thing on the wall – whereas now, the orientation is more to think that art is the process, or what happens to you when you view it. I think this is an important part of Gary Glitter's records in that they make you move in a funny sort of way. Or reggae. It's not possible to assess them without taking into account the part of their existence which causes a certain kind of behaviour.  I've always been interested in the idea of what I call systems art/systems music', which is where you think first of all of your activity as a system which must be intact and interesting – and you think of the artwork which also must be interesting – and you think of the listener as a system which must be interesting too. So you must work on all these levels. That's why I don't like the idea of spending months and years recording, because essentially, that isn't an interesting process to me."

'Here Come the Warm Jets' charted at number one hundred and fifty-one in the US and twenty-six in the UK.  It remains his highest charting solo album in either country.  

http://brian-eno.net

'Here Come the Warm Jets'

full album:




All tracks written by Brian Eno, except where noted.

0:00 Needles in the Camel's Eye  (Eno, Phil Manzanera)

3:11 The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch

6:15 Baby's on Fire

11:35 Cindy Tells Me (Eno, Manzanera)

15:01 Driving Me Backwards

20:13 On Some Faraway Beach

24:49 Blank Frank (Eno, Robert Fripp)

28:26 Dead Finks Don't Talk  (arr. Paul Thompson, Busta Jones, Nick Judd, Eno)

32:47 Some of Them Are Old

37:25 Here Come the Warm Jets