Brian Eno

I'll burn my fingers, burn my toes

Burn my uncle, burn his books

Burn his shoes, cook the leather

Put it on me, does it fit

Me or you?

It looks tight on you

British musician, producer and composer Brian Eno is one of the defining figures in all of rock, so I doubt he needs any further introduction.

One need only think of his collaborations with the likes of Roxy Music, Matching Mole, Lady June, John Cale, Nico, Genesis, Quiet Sun, Penguin Café Orchestra, Jan Steele, Ultravox – there's no getting around it, the list is endless – to understand what he's made of. Say what you will, but this self-styled non-musician certainly served his time before being recognized as the jewel in the crown of ambient music. And yet his varied pop-rock side is still barely discussed today, mentioned only in passing because of his crucial role in the Berlin period of the White Duke in the late Seventies.

After an admirable debut like "Here Come The Warm Jets" (Island, 1974), which left the artist "absolutely free" – to borrow a phrase of Zappian memory – to express his vast creativity, along comes a burst of abstraction that goes well beyond the theatrical bent of that already-mentioned studio debut. "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)" (Island, 1974) is the guide the listener has been waiting for, hoping it would come from him and take them by the hand. That monolith of Kubrickian memory shines with its own light and reflects nothing but its own modernism, steeped in a deep analysis of the structure of the typical pop song. Indeed, "pop" becomes a genuine umbrella term encompassing a whole flood of influences on the music still to come.

The opener "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" catapults the listener into a light, floating context that is nonetheless obsessively constructed, one in which the sensual allure of glam rock weds the most melodic strain of psychedelia, settling on a sound that was nothing short of postmodern for its time, and instantly recognizable. The soft synthesizers play emotionally on an embryonic nostalgia, one never actually lived, yet still conveying a considerable bittersweet effect.

Where the English musician's previous work still needed some fine-tuning, largely due to the experience inherited from Roxy Music, on "Taking Tiger" he is free of every artistic convention. This is where history is made, and Eno is its protagonist. What proves especially captivating is the contrast between Western musical trends and the allure of Eastern aesthetics, a sign of a cultural shift taking hold, made explicit in the closing lyrics.

Drawing on veiled references to the Vietnam War, the adventurous "Back in Judy's Jungle" takes on a fairy-tale imagery brought back down to the wartime reality of its protagonist, a squadron trapped in a jungle cut off from the world, starved of information and thoroughly confused about the purpose of its mission there: Eno slows the song's pace, dissolves it into acid synths, and delivers a thoroughly commendable choral performance.

The hypnotic "The Fat Lady Of Limbourg" bears witness to Eno's considerable narrative gifts, here close to a plot suspended in time, between moments of icy tension and noir touches. The nocturnal mood of the piece, whose horns echo the best of the Canterbury scene, lends it a further sense of spectrality that makes it even more brooding.

There are tins, there was pork

There are legs, there are sharks

There was John, there are cliffs

There are Mother, there’s a poker

There was you

Then there was you

The explosive "Third Uncle" is introduced by the quivering bass of Brian Turrington – one of the track's arrangers – and then driven by the hefty drumming of Fred Smith (Third World War).

The mood speaks for itself. Rock, as we know it, no longer exists: the fusion of Robert Wyatt's primitive percussion, on top form, with the track's nervy rhythms makes this one of the most ingenious and suspenseful pieces in Eno's entire catalogue, pop or otherwise. The British producer throws down a seemingly nonsensical lyric verging on Dadaism, in which an extended list of people, animals, objects, details and situations keeps slipping away from any sustained focus on some undefined being. A burst of feedback anticipates the ominous bark of Phil Manzanera's electric guitar, here on the verge of hysteria. The track dissolves in a fury unheard of until that point, a moment that foreshadows the schizophrenia of modern times in the most macabre way possible. Could it be that all of this is simply an abstract tale meant to stir up memories of every kind, inevitably leaving the listener unsure of its meaning?

Regardless, "Third Uncle" stands out as one of the first genuine outsider-musician tracks, an explosive device impossible to defuse in time: Eno throws every genre he can think of into one pot and, with the help of some outstanding musicians, gives the best possible shape to his idea of musical multiculturalism, leaving a responsible mark on the future of rock music, from noise (Half Japanese and beyond) to the "non-oscillation of the wave" (the no wave movement). In 1982, Bauhaus would pay tribute to the song, in a distinctly post-punk key, on their album "The Sky's Gone Out".

Between Barrett-style psychedelia and the morbidly dreamlike character of Velvet Underground, the childlike "Put A Straw Under Baby" serves as the album's lullaby. Made in collaboration with the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra founded by British avant-garde composer Gavin Bryars, the track warms the heart with its innocence. Eno distorts the melody and makes its strangeness entirely his own.

The following track, "The True Wheel", is instead pure new wave. Wrapped in the choirboy voices of Randy & The Pyramids, the song travels along its cabaret-like imprint, one that by this point fuses everything together, from top-shelf art rock to an intricate pop-glam hybrid. The thrilling guitar riff has by now become a permanent fixture in rock history. And after a radical shift in rhythm and atmosphere, proof of the track's ongoing evolution, it dissolves into Wyatt's splendid percussion.

The funk-driven verve of "China My China" conjures the image of a nation locked in constant contradiction with itself. The "typewriter" solo halfway through the track is iconic, further proof that Eno's experimental incursions into his pop-rock compositions still land with striking ingenuity today. Last but not least, the unforgettable title track: sparse yet overwhelming sonics, bolstered by masterful use of sound effects and a captivating arrangement, land with an impact deeply tied to the end of a journey — melancholic, desolate, yet at the same time memorable and unrivalled.

Is it time to say goodbye? I doubt it very much. That's precisely why a work like "Taking Tiger" deserves endless replays. If it were dynamite, it would blow your boredom to smithereens without a doubt.

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05/05/2026