Here Come the Warm Jets

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here Come the Warm Jets
Here Come the Warm Jets cover
Studio album by Brian Eno
Released UK 1973 (1973)
NA January 1974 (1974-01)[1]
Recorded September 1973
Majestic Studios, London
Genre Art rock, glam rock
Length 42:01
Label Island
Producer Brian Eno
Professional reviews

Original:

Robert Christgau (A)
Rolling Stone

Reissue:

Allmusic 5/5 stars
BBC
Pitchfork Media (9.2/10)
PopMatters
Brian Eno chronology
(No Pussyfooting)
(1973)		 Here Come the Warm Jets
(1973)		 June 1, 1974
(1974)
Alternate cover
2004 Original Masters edition
2004 Original Masters edition

Here Come the Warm Jets is the debut solo album by Brian Eno, released in 1973. Produced by Eno, it was his first album for Island Records. The musical styles of Here Come the Warm Jets differed notably from Eno's previous album work with Roxy Music and Robert Fripp, with songs becoming more quirky and experimental. The album also boasted sixteen guest musicians, including Fripp and members of Roxy Music, Hawkwind, Matching Mole, and The Pink Fairies.

The album peaked at #26 on the UK album charts and #151 on the U.S. Billboard charts, receiving a number of positive reviews. It was re-issued on compact disc in 1990 on E.G. Records and in 2004 on Virgin Records, and continued to elicit praise. Critic Steve Huey of Allmusic stated that the album "still sounds exciting, forward-looking, and densely detailed, revealing more intricacies with every play",[1] while the BBC's Chris Jones called it "a work of genius because it didn't know the meaning of restraint".[4]

Contents

[edit] Production

Here Come the Warm Jets was recorded in twelve days at Majestic Studios in London during September 1973 by recording engineer Derek Chandler.[7][8] It was mixed at Air and Olympic Studios by Eno and audio engineer Chris Thomas.[8] The album's title, once thought to be a slang term for urination,[7] describes the treated guitar on the title track. Eno called it "warm jet guitar", he would later explain, "because the guitar sounded like a tuned jet."[9][10]

Eno enlisted sixteen guest musicians to play on the album with him, including John Wetton and Robert Fripp of King Crimson, Simon King from Hawkwind, Bill MacCormick of Matching Mole, Paul Rudolph of Pink Fairies, and all the members of Roxy Music except vocalist Bryan Ferry. Eno selected them on the basis that he thought they were incompatible with each other musically.[7] He stated that he "got them together merely because I wanted to see what happens when you combine different identities like that and allow them to compete... [The situation] is organized with the knowledge that there might be accidents, accidents which will be more interesting that what I had intended".[7]

Eno directed the musicians by using body language and dancing, as well as through verbal suggestion, to influence their playing and the sounds they would emit. He felt that this was a good way to communicate with musicians at the time.[7] The album credits Eno with instruments such as "snake guitar", "simplistic piano" and "electric larnyx". These terms were used to describe the sound's character or the means of production used to treat the instruments.[7] After recording the individual tracks, Eno condensed and mixed the instrumentation deeply, resulting in some of the tracks bearing little resemblance to what the musicians recorded during the session.[7]

[edit] Style

The songs on Here Come the Warm Jets reference various musical styles from the past and present. The overall style of the album has been described as "glammed-up art-pop", showcasing glam rock's simple yet theatrical crunchy guitar rock and art-rock's sonic texture and avant-garde influences.[11][12][13] In some tracks, Eno's vocals emulate the manner of the lead singer of his former band Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry.[7] On other songs such as "Baby's on Fire", they were described as "more nasal and slightly snotty vocals".[14][15] Musically, the album borrows from popular styles of the fifties such as the tinkling pianos and falsetto backing vocals on "Cindy Tells Me", and the drum rhythm of "Blank Frank", modelled after Bo Diddley's song "Who Do You Love?".[7]

To create the lyrics, Eno would later play these backing tracks singing nonsense syllables to himself, then taking them and forming them into actual words, phrases and meaning.[7] This lyric-writing method was used for all his more vocal-based recordings of the 1970s.[16] The lyrics on Here Come the Warm Jets are macabre with an underlying sense of humour.[1][17] They are mostly free-associative and have no particular meaning. Exceptions include "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch", about someone having a love affair with a man from Paw Paw, Michigan whose breath causes things to catch on fire.[17] Eno has attempted to dissuade fans from reading too much into his words; he claims that the song "Needles in the Camel's Eye" was "written in less time than it takes to sing...I regard [the song] as an instrumental with singing on it".[17]

[edit] Release and reception

The album was one of Brian Eno's best-selling releases, charting for two weeks and peaking at #26 on the UK Albums Chart on March 9, 1974,[18] and #151 on the U.S. Billboard charts.[19] Eno would not achieve chart success again in the UK until the release of Music for Films on October 21, 1978 and in the U.S. until Before and After Science the same year.[18][20] Initial critical reception for the album was mostly positive, praising its experimental tendencies.[7] Critic Lester Bangs of Creem declared it "Incredible",[7] while Robert Christgau of Village Voice gave it an "A" rating, stating that "The idea of this record--top of the pops from quasi-dadaist British synth wizard--may put you off, but the actuality is quite engaging in a vaguely Velvet Underground kind of way."[2] The album was also placed in Circus magazine's section for "Picks of the Month".[7] Cynthia Dagnal of Rolling Stone wrote an article on Eno, calling the album "a very compelling experiment in controlled chaos and by his own self-dictated standards a near success."[7] The next month, Gordon Fletcher wrote a negative review for the album in the "Records" section of Rolling Stone, stating "[Eno's] record is annoying because it doesn't do anything...the listener must kick himself for blowing five bucks on baloney."[3][7]

In 2004, Virgin Records began reissuing Eno's albums in batches of four to five.[21] The remastered digipak release of Here Come the Warm Jets was released on May 31, 2004 in the UK and on June 1, 2004 in North America.[6] Modern assessments of the album have been positive, Allmusic, Rolling Stone and Uncut giving the album five stars, their highest ratings.[22][1] In the November 2003 issue of Rolling Stone, the album charted at #436 on the magazine's top albums 500 albums of all time.[23] In 2004, Pitchfork Media ranked the album at #24 on its list of "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s",[24] as well as giving the re-issue of the album 9.2 out of 10.[5]

[edit] Track listing

All songs written and composed by Brian Eno, except where noted [8]. 

# Title Length
1. "Needles in the Camel's Eye" (Eno, Phil Manzanera) 3:11
2. "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch"   3:04
3. "Baby's on Fire"   5:19
4. "Cindy Tells Me" (Eno, Manzanera) 3:25
5. "Driving Me Backwards"   5:12
6. "On Some Faraway Beach" (Eno, Manzanera) 4:36
7. "Blank Frank" (Eno, Robert Fripp) 3:37
8. "Dead Finks Don't Talk" (arr. Paul Thompson, Busta Jones, Nick Judd, Eno) 4:19
9. "Some of Them Are Old"   5:11
10. "Here Come the Warm Jets"   4:04

Track listing note: On the original LP album release, side one was comprised of tracks 1-5; side two, of tracks 6-10.[8]

[edit] Personnel

[edit] Technical personnel

  • Brian Eno – producer, mixer
  • Chris Thomas – mixer
  • Derek Chandler – recording engineer
  • Denny Bridges, Phil Chapman, Paul Hardiman – mixing engineers
  • Arun Chakraverty – mastering

[edit] Charts

Year Chart Peak Position
1974 UK Albums Chart 26
1974 Billboard Pop Albums 151

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Huey, Steve. Here Come the Warm Jets album review. Allmusic. Retrieved on 2008-05-09.
  2. ^ a b Robert Christgau: CG: Artist 190. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
  3. ^ a b Brian Eno: Here Come The Warm Jets. Rolling Stone. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
  4. ^ a b Jones, Chris (20 September 2003). Brian Eno reissues review. BBC. Retrieved on 2008-05-09.
  5. ^ a b Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets / Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) / Another Green World / Before and After Science: Pitchfork Record Review (14 June 2004). Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
  6. ^ a b Davidson, John (July 29, 2004). Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets [reissue - PopMatters Music Review]. Popmatters. Retrieved on 2008-05-16.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Tamm, 1995. pp.98-102
  8. ^ a b c d Brian Eno. Here Come the Warm Jets. Island Records, 1974.
  9. ^ Eno, Brian. Brian Eno, interviewed by Andy Gill in Mojo. Mojo. Retrieved on 2008-05-22.
  10. ^ Maginnis, Tom. Here Come the Warm Jets song review. Allmusic. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
  11. ^ Buckley, 2003 . p.344
  12. ^ explore music...Glam Rock. Retrieved on 2008-05-22.
  13. ^ explore music...Prog-Rock/Art Rock. Retrieved on 2008-05-22.
  14. ^ Huey, Steve. Baby's on Fire song review. Allmusic. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
  15. ^ Howard, 2004. p.191
  16. ^ Tamm, 1995. p.81
  17. ^ a b c Tamm, 1995. p.110-120
  18. ^ a b Warwick, 2004. p.379
  19. ^ Here Come the Warm Jets. Allmusic. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
  20. ^ Before and After Science. Allmusic. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
  21. ^ THE MUSICAL LIFE OF BRIAN!. NME. Retrieved on 2008-05-16.
  22. ^ Brian Eno Here Come The Warm Jets CD. cduniverse. Retrieved on 2008-05-16.
  23. ^ #436: Here Come the Warm Jets. Rolling Stone. Retrieved on 2008-05-10.
  24. ^ Pitchfork Feature: Top 100 Albums of the 1970s (23 June 2004). Retrieved on 2008-05-10.

[edit] References

[edit] External links


v • d • e
Brian Eno
Solo albums
With Roxy Music
With Robert Fripp
With Cluster
Other collaborations
Compilations
Publications
Related
Languages