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Certain albums are most fun when the volume knob is cranked to 11, but others demand to be maxed out in order to absorb their many textures, layers and nuances. Brian Eno’s first solo album, 1973’s Here Come The Warm Jets, is packed to the brim with masterful soundscapes. If it doesn’t feel like a fleet of F-16s has flown through your living room by the LP’s end, chances are the volume dial is in need of a sharp turn to the right.
Eno left Roxy Music earlier in 1973 and partnered with Robert Fripp of King Crimson for the Fripp & Eno collaboration (No Pussyfooting). Fripp returns on The Warm Jets. His guitar work is hostile and omnipresent on his three tracks — “Baby’s On Fire,” “Driving Me Backwards” and “Blank Frank,” the latter of which finds him using his guitar to mimic machine gun fire. While Eno sings “Look at her laughing like a heifer to the slaughter” in “Baby’s On Fire,” Fripp plays the mad arsonist as his solo engulfs the track in flames, taking no prisoners.
Like any great Eno release, it’s chalk full of bizarre noises that shouldn’t work but fit like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle. The chicken-like clucking squeals of “Oh no!!” in “Dead Finks Don’t Talk” and the computer orgasm in “The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch” add a breadth to the songs that few other artists would even consider including. From the dreamy sway of “On Some Faraway Beach” to the raucous guitar in “Needle In The Camel’s Eye,” Here Come The Warm Jets boasts a breadth of sounds, but none are more compelling than those in the title track.
The title comes from the “Warm Jet” guitar tone utilized in the album’s stunning closing track. “Some Of Them Are Old” segues into the “Here Come The Warm Jets” as the introductory note bends into pitch, revealing a note that carries a sense of perfection only reached by happy accident. The “Warm Jet” guitar resembles a fuzzed-out, electric bowed cello. And it’s doubled, creating an eerie effect on the listener. It’s always unclear what the sounds actually are, but the clarity is in what the song conveys. The track’s layers and textures unfold as it progresses, but the opening guitar line is welcoming enough to distract from everything else going on.
When the double tracked drums come in, taking over for the metallic pipe percussion sounds, they crash into each other and whirl around before finally syncing. They serve as a chaotic centerpiece, much like the wall of a hurricane, only there’s no momentary safety in the center. As other instruments enter, the swirling feeling grows when the guitars begin to play in a round.
The music crescendos until the vocals arrive (“Nowhere to be”), and at that point, the sound has grown so large it has no choice but to dissipate. So it fades into oblivion. Eno has said the lyrics in this album are meaningless, but as the album fades out, he sings “Nothing to say,” as if nothing further could benefit the song. When this song is playing, there’s little else that can be done except to listen. This is not passive background music; it’s a multi-layered masterpiece.
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