Brian Eno has come a long way since these early days. A self-taught musician and producer, Brian Eno is the former keyboardist of
Roxy Music, but has since forged his own destiny after a falling out with frontman Bryan Ferry in 1973, going on to work with such esteemed bands and musicians as
King Crimson,
Talking Heads,
David Bowie, and many others. Production credits aside, he’s also best known for his ambient works; I find he gets far too much credit for inventing ambient music, but that’s another rant for another day. He did make an ambient album the year prior with King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, but his mid-70s work is mostly along the lines of art rock/pop, and for better or for worse his solo debut
Here Come the Warm Jets is easily the most varied and eclectic of the lot.
Opener “Needle in the Camel’s Eye” begins with guitars so heavily treated it almost sounds to my ears like shoegaze before shoegaze was even a thing, which is compounded by Eno’s multitracked vocals that are somehow distant but at the same time demand attention. While not exactly the best in the track listing, it’s certainly a nice demonstration of Eno’s production capabilities. “The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch” features one of Eno’s most animated vocal performances as he sings about losing a girlfriend to someone who can breathe fire, and the absurdity is further emphasized by a strange blurting synth that almost sounds like a presage to Talking Heads’
Remain in Light. “Baby’s On Fire” is the first serious misstep, in my opinion; Eno adopts a more nasal tone and derisive delivery that annoys the shit out of me, and Fripp’s solo, good though it is, doesn’t make the song feel like anything less than the same chord progression chugging along and a dead baby joke overstaying its welcome by a good two minutes. You know a song’s boring when not even Robert Fripp can make it interesting.
“Cindy Tells Me” has a sort of doo-wop vibe to it with that kitschy eighth-note piano melody, and it probably wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Bowie record. It also has a nice guitar solo that pans between the ears so subtly that it’s almost unnoticeable. “Driving Me Backwards” is easily Eno’s worst vocal performance (unless any potentially dishonorable mentions from his work with Roxy Music prove me wrong); he struggles to hit high As throughout, and the increasing layers of instrumentation fail to distract from the fact that the song’s mostly just the same three chords over and over again. “On Some Faraway Beach” really does sound like something from a faraway beach; the opening piano riff is too static for my taste, but I like how the song becomes less distant and gains in volume with each instrumental addition.
Though Robert Fripp has another solo that demands to be heard above everything else, there’s something about the way “Blank Frank” is arranged that ensures every individual player’s contributions stand out. Fripp is the standout, of course, but the percussion is also somewhat unusual in that it sounds like it’s mostly wooden spoons, and Eno milks as much suspense from the song as possible by hanging onto his final sung note until the song stops. “Dead Finks Don’t Talk” features Eno’s most varied vocal performance, with backing vocals that get increasingly stranger and inventing new voices for spoken word segments. The only thing about this song I don’t care for is Eno shouting “oh no!” in the background like a choking rooster, but otherwise it’s a good song, and the snake guitar solo is also nice. If anyone’s wondering what the hell snake guitar is, here’s what Eno himself had to say about it:
“All those words are my descriptions of either way of playing or a sound; in that case it was because the kind of lines I was playing reminded me of the way a snake moves through the brush, a sort of speedy, forceful, liquid quality.”
The song is swiftly ended by abrasive electronic noise that sounds like the studio suddenly got invaded by
Throbbing Gristle, and the next song is almost as abrupt in how peaceful it is. “Some of Them Are Old” has vocal harmonies that sound decidedly choral, and Lloyd Watson’s slide guitar solo is also sublime. The song fades out, leaving sampled singing bowls which serve to indicate the trajectory Eno’s career is to take. Finally, there’s the title track, “Here Come the Warm Jets,” which is mostly underlined by the bowls. The individual performances sound like they were recorded separately and assembled into a song post hoc, and the pieces are put out of step almost as soon as they line up. The music is loose and the production is muddy, but it also feels very calculated, and the perpetual displacement is somehow pleasing to the ears.
Here Come the Warm Jets feels like Eno’s throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, which makes it one of his least cohesive releases, but the erratic nature of the track listing sometimes works in its favour. When it works, it showcases the talent of every musician, and when it doesn’t, you get dull shite like “Baby’s On Fire”, but even with those differences in quality, each song is so different that I’m always excited to hear what the next one sounds like. Even with
Taking Tiger Mountain and
Another Green World dwarfing this album in consistency and quality,
Here Come the Warm Jets is quite impressive for a self-taught singer and musician in some places, and it shouldn’t be missed if you’re looking to explore Eno’s discography.
Favourite tracks: "Cindy Tells Me", "Blank Frank", "Here Come the Warm Jets", "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch", "Some of Them Are Old"
Least favourite tracks: "Driving Me Backwards", "Baby's On Fire"
