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 Culpa02 Lot/Into The Spirit World03 Regiment04 Iron Bed05 America Is Waiting06 Breathing Once A Minute07 Shaking With My Voice08 Cunning Tendency09 Late But Serious10 In The Castle Of My Skin11 Spirit Of Prey12 Mountain Of Needles
