Eno and Byrne

"My Life in the Bush of Ghost's" was a visionary album in that it was produced before computers were in every household and before music was digitalized. It pioneered much of the music we hear today and it still sounds fresh.

Talking about borrowing lo-fi "found" recordings of evangelists, angry radio talk-show hosts and Arabic singers, Byrne says: "...we came to realize that high fidelity was a vastly overrated convention that no one had bothered to question, and sometimes the harsh megaphone-like quality of these vocals was actually much more characterful. They sounded like transmissions from a desperate planet."

"Drawing on funk and world music (particularly the multi-layered percussion of African music), My Life is similar to Talking Heads' music of the same era. The "found objects" credited to Eno and Byrne were common objects used mostly as percussion. In the notes for the 2006 expanded edition of the album, Byrne writes that they would often use a normal drum kit, but with a cardboard box replacing the bass drum, or a frying pan replacing the snare drum; this would blend the familiar drum sound with unusual percussive noises.
"However, rather than featuring conventional pop or rock singing, most of the vocals are sampled from other sources, such as commercial recordings of Arabic singers, radio disk jockeys, and an exorcist. Musicians had previously used similarly sampling techniques, but critic Dave Simpson[4] declares it had never before been used "to such cataclysmic effect" as on My Life.
"The album was recorded entirely with analogue technology, before the advent of digital sequencing and Musical Instrument Digital Interface. The sampled voices were synchronized with the instrumental tracks via trial and error, a practice that was often frustrating, but which also produced several happy accidents." -- Amazon review

When Eno and Byrne met up again for the remaster of Ghosts, they discovered common ground to produce another album, "Everything That Happens" (http://everythingthathappens.com). Their new album is online, offering several formats (mp3 and flac), various bit rates and they released a couple of multi tracks from Ghosts (http://www.bush-of-ghosts.com/) for remixing under a Creative Commons license. 

This is the kind of music that deserves paying attention to and buying.

There is an excellent article by David Byrne which uses interviews from people in the music business. It's a good read if your interested in music at all. "David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists - and Megastars"

Another Byrne quote: "There was another piece in the Times today about yet another 20 percent drop in CD sales. (Are they running the same news piece every 4 months?) Jeez guys, the writing's on the wall. How long do the record execs think they'll have those offices and nice parking spaces? (Well, more than half of all record A&R and other execs are gone already, so there should be plenty of parking space). They, the big 4 or 5, should give the catalogues back to the artists or their heirs as a gesture before they close the office doors, as they sure don't know how to sell music anymore. (I have Talking Heads stuff on the shelf that I can't get Warner to release.) The "industry" had a nice 50-year ride, but it's time to move on."

Brian Eno and David Byrne: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts '81

part 1

part 2

America is Waiting

Mea Culpa

Regiment

Help Me Somebody

The Jezebel Spirit

Very, Very Hungry

Moonlight in Glory

The Carrier

A Secret Life

Come With Us 

Mountain of Needles

New Feet

Strange Overtones from "Everything that Happens"