Brian Eno... Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)

Released: November 1974
Recorded: September 1974 at Island Studios, London
Length: 48:14
Label: Island
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Brian Eno… I’ve mentioned him before in a previous entry. But what can be said about the man that would do him justice? Not even in my opinion. The guy was always ahead of everything in music with his sounds and techniques that are still bizarre to this day.

Don’t remember where I first heard of Brian Eno, but it must’ve been many years ago from KCRW (I’m guessing) and it was probably something from one of his ambient projects, so I didn’t really pay much attention to it. When I finally sat and listened to bulk of his rock stuff I had to keep looking at the copy rights on the album because everything sounded like I heard it before during the 90’s. It was all a real mind fuck because everything that I loved in the 90’s was for the most part pioneered by Brian Eno.

I originally kept an idea of writing about his first album Here Come The Warm Jets, but while I was listening to the radio the other day China My China was playing in the background and it stuck with me during this last week. It sounds real playful and it kinda reminds me of something like Tripping Daisy (which in many ways became the Polyphonic Spree).  The guitars are addictive to me when it changes up from the simple stuff at the beginning, also very inspiring to me makes me want to write something light hearted (which is not in character for me).

Bauhaus does an awesome version of the song Third Uncle, which is also fucking awesome. It sounds a little fast and grimier but the respect for Brian Eno is there. The pace of the original is fast that makes me think of a Parkour chase scene in a movie with dudes flying around all over buildings, good times in my eyes.

The chorus of the True Wheel is pretty crazy I can hear allot of the newer bands use that trick. And when the guitars break down it reminds me of the kinda stuff Nirvana would do, but with more distortion. In Eno’s career has set the blueprint for most of rock music’s most memorable sounds with this album from the point  it started to now.

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1."Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" 3:18
2."Back in Judy's Jungle" 5:16
3."The Fat Lady of Limbourg" 5:03
4."Mother Whale Eyeless" 5:45
5."The Great Pretender" 5:11
6."Third Uncle" 4:48
7."Put a Straw Under Baby" 3:25
8."The True Wheel" 5:11
9."China My China" 4:44
10."Taking Tiger Mountain" 5:32