now playing march 2004
by Ben Ramsey Brian Eno - Taking tiger Mountain (by Strategy) (1974, EG) / Discreet Music (1975, EG) / Before and After Science (1977, Island) / Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978, EG) These four albums, released over the course of 4 years from 1974 and 1978, show different aspects of the man we in the modern day know as the penultimate producer. If the drumming sounds famliar, that's because it's Phil Collins. These albums don't quite yet feature Jah Wobble, David Bowie, or even Robert Fripp. The first here, Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy), was released just a year after leaving glam-rockers roxy music, and is reminiscent of that band's high-concept, pre-progressive rock -- but there's more there, even though it's not fully fleshed out. small synth lines and studio manipulations creep up in the mix and many of the arrangements are kind of difficult to get your ears around, while the vocals, which center largely around a double-agent scheme involvin