Brian Eno & David Byrne - Life Before The Bush Of Ghosts (1980)

Brian Eno and David Byrne's 'My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts' has always been a favourite album, and quite rightly so, being heralded as among the first recordings to meld ambient sounds and hip-hop-style sampling with global rhythms, and I'm so glad that I bought the vinyl when it came out, since the CD re-issue had to remove the track 'Qu'ran' after complaints from the Islamic Council Of Great Britain about using a recital from their holy book on a pop record. I've recently come across this collection of demos for the album, which were leaked online by someone who had obtained a pre-release cassette containing these recordings while staying at David Byrne's home in 1981. Some of the demos made it to the album in a more polished form, while others had to be left off, although some did surface on the expanded CD re-issues later on. It even features Byrne himself reading passages from the Quran, which were later removed from the finished product. It's a fascinating insight into the working partnership which produced the innovative '...Ghosts' album, and so well worth hearing for fans of Eno, Byrne, or the album itself.     

Track listing

01 Mea Culpa
02 Lot/Into The Spirit World
03 Regiment
04 Iron Bed
05 America Is Waiting
06 Breathing Once A Minute
07 Shaking With My Voice
08 Cunning Tendency
09 Late But Serious
10 In The Castle Of My Skin
11 Spirit Of Prey
12 Mountain Of Needles