#432 - Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets (1973)

MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:

Released by Island Records in January of 1974 this is the self-produced debut album by Glam Rock, Art Pop, Avant Garde, Ambient Music pioneer Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno who thankfully only went by Eno.

So how does a self-described “non-musician” with no formal training end up with not just two albums on The 500 but also as the producer of some of the most popular and important records of all time?

Well, it started in the late ‘60s when Eno was studying painting and experimental music in art school and college.

After attending a lecture by Pete Townshend of The Who Eno was convinced that he could make music despite his lack of formal musical education.

He made sonic experiments using a tape recorder as his instrument and joined improvisational groups.

In 1970 saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist, Andy Mackay, a university friend of Eno’s answered the ad for a keyboardist to form a local glam and art rock group called Roxy Music.

Mackay convinced Eno to also join Roxy Music as a “technical adviser” because despite not being a musician he could operate Mackay’s synthesizer and he could manipulate fresh sounds with his own reel-to-reel tape machine.

Initially during live shows Eno would process the band’s sounds, run tape recordings, and sing back ups from a mixing board offstage but by 1971 Eno was Roxy Music’s flamboyantly dressed onstage synthesizer player.

After two successful and influential albums with Roxy Music Eno left to immediately pursue a solo career in 1973.

Eno built on his experimental contributions to Roxy Music with the help of sixteen assembled musicians including most of Roxy Music, as well as members of Progressive Rock bands King Crimson, Hawkwind, Pink Fairies, and Matching Moles.

His intention was to organize the musicians who were most incompatible to play together to achieve the most interesting accidental results.

He also communicated his song ideas by dancing and body language as well as vague verbal suggestions. And after recording the musicians he would often run their recorded contributions through effects processors to further obscure the original sounds.

To write many of the lyrics he would playback the instrumental tracks and sing nonsense words until he liked how it sounded. Then he would replace the gibberish with words, phrases, and meanings while usually still free-associating.

Less than two weeks later “Here Come the Warm Jets” was recorded.

Upon release it received mostly positive reviews and charted for two weeks, peaking at number 26 on the UK album charts and 151 on the Billboard Pop charts.

Eno followed up with several more electronic Art Rock albums before creating and coining the term “Ambient Music” to describe his further releases.

He also collaborated on many projects with notable musicians.

His unique outlook on recording soon found him producing seminal albums for David Bowie, Devo, Talking Heads, and U2, amongst others.

Many of these are on current and future episodes of The 500.