Brian Eno – 2 Forms of Anger (Warp)
5/5
By: Samuel Smith
After finishing working on the seminal Talking Heads record Remain in Light (the second of the three he recorded with them), Brian Eno wanted to continue working with David Byrne on the ideas of rhythm that they’d already began to investigate, but couldn’t fully explore within the confines of the Talking Heads. This had already caused huge tensions with the rest of the band as Eno’s idea of The Producer (note the capitals. I’m pretty sure Eno thinks only in Capitals) began to alienate them from Byrne, subjugating them into a separate collection of almost session musicians drumming monkeys under the guidance of Eno’s waggling fingers . As a result, Byrne and Eno began working on a project of “finding”, using “found objects” and “found rhythms” from across the world that resulted in the equally seminal and oft-referenced My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
Keep in mind that this point in the very early 80’s was waaaay before “world music” became such an awful, meaningless cliché, and for the two musicians it was a period of great musical discovery. The white-boy funk was still there, but they began to scratch away at a great wealth of new ideas. There were no vocals as such, no linear progressions, but instead a set of manually arranged vocal samples (this was also before the advent of modular sequencers and midi samplers – just imagine the painstaking care of arranging tape samples to syncopated beats), quotations from the Qu’ran, recordings of exorcisms, Arabic singing etc. all placed unceremoniously atop the chaos of these “found rhythms” which were often played on improvised drum kits, snares made from frying pans, kick drums made of cardboard boxes etc.
Short history lesson over, it seems as if Eno Has Been Sat In His Castle Stewing over the Concept for the last thirty years or so, and this track is the final, logical conclusion of it. ‘2 Forms of Anger’ sees Eno, thirty years down the line still stewing over the same concept of “found rhythms” and tribal inspiration, but focused through the cinematic scale of music-as-emotion that he has played with over the last few decades. The driving force behind the track is an unbelievably aggressive pelt of tribal drums that pump anaerobically with primal force.
It’s dark, dense and significantly successful in enacting nothing but itself, it is a self contained, noisome burst that signifies little else than that it is. The crescendo comes so subtly and forcefully that you don’t even realize it’s there till you’re punching the guy on the train next to you in an aneurytic throb of testosterone. This is probably why the tube strikes happened. Bloody Eno and his being great.
Brian Eno - 2 Forms Of Anger (taken from Small Craft On A Milk Sea) by Warp Records
Artists in this article: Brian Eno
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