Brian Eno: Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)

Brian Eno
Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
Island; 1974

(Buy/DL links end of post)

"In my town, there is a raincoat under a tree/ In the sun, there is a cloud containing the sea/ In the sea, there is a whale without any eyes/ In the whale, there is a man without his raincoat."

I don't think I can say anything about Brian Eno that hasn't already been said time after time. What I can say is, when I think about Brian Eno and his career, I start to feel small. Really really small. If you aren't familiar, on top of his own work, take a look at a list of artists Eno was involved with, from performance to production and beyond :

David Bowie (his best three albums no less,) David Bryne with and without Talking Heads, Devo, Grace Jones, seven albums with U2, Roxy Music, John Cale, John Cage, Genesis, Nico, Robert Fripp, Phil Collins, Robert Wyatt, Ultravox, Phillip Glass, Coldplay, remixes for Depeche Mode and Massive Attack albums. Not to mention he composed that classic 3.8 second masterpiece "The Microsoft Sound," aka that little sound we heard as kids when we would turn on out computers and "boot up" Windows '95, '98 etc.

I can't think of anyone alive today, except Brian Eno, who is more prolific than Brian Eno.

Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) is rarely counted among Eno's best work. In fact it's chronically underrated. Which is odd, considering the majority of its reviews are for the most part positive. Personally, this is my favorite of Eno's four major pre-ambient albums. It's diabolical, schizophrenic, very cluttered, and most of the time confusing. It's also inertly English. It's named for a Chinese opera about thugs, spies, and of course Communists. Not quite a concept album, Tiger Mountain is loaded with references to China, espionage, insanity, and God knows what else, ie. "In the haze of her morning, China sits on eternity/and the opium farmers sell dreams to obscure fraternities" from the song "China My China."

I love this album for a few reasons. Most importantly, despite its noticeably dark lyrical content, this is clearly Eno's "pop" album. It's his second solo album, his last before 1975's groundbreaking Another Green World. Back then, in the immediate post-Roxy Music days, I think Eno was supposed to be this gender bending, Bowie-type deviant sex-fiend guy or something. Which doesn't seem that weird today, and probably didn't in 1974 either. But I could be wrong on that.

So here's Eno with a name already made for himself, free of all pent-up Roxy Music baggage, having a good clean bit of psychotic English fun before turning the world on its head and completely revolutionizing modern music as we know it. I think that's another reason this album is so endearing.

The stage is set with the phenomenally weird opening track, "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More," about a girl named Regina (pronounced more like a female organ than the singer) who left a message on the door about having just left for China. Eno sings, over vocal harmonies, swirling reverb-soaked guitars, a bubbling bass-line which seems to permeate the entire album, and the slow driving of what I think is an impeccably well-recorded snare, "I somehow can't imagine her just picking rice all day/ Maybe she will do a bit of spying/ With micro-cameras hidden in her hair."

Brian Eno - "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More"

"Back In Judy's Jungle" is up next. It sounds like a happily demented carousel ride and begins by immediately shouting some insane demands at you: "These are your orders, seems like its do-it or die." The middle of this song has this mild Phil Manzanera guitar solo and I honestly don't think I have ever heard a guitar sound quite like it. This is a testament to the brilliant and innovative production talent of Eno and friends, a talent which in 70's became increasingly more evident in everything Eno touched.

I can't figure out if "The Fat Lady of Limbourg," being only the second most psychologically menacing track on Tiger, begins with a bass guitar Eno rigged up to sound like a seriously deep electric organ, or if it's the other way around. But if I were a betting man I would put a hefty sum on the former. Apparently, this song is about a mental institution whose population was greater than that of the town in which is was located, and the song contains this lyrical gem, "I assume you understand that we have options on your time/ And we'll ditch you in the harbor if we must/ But if it all works out nicely, you'll get bonus you deserve/ From Doctors We Trust." It all becomes more troubling when Andy MacKay's saxophone comes in and Eno starts singing about singing about a duck who lays an sought-after egg, which eventually melts into a candle. No idea what that's about.

I mention the lyrics on the album so much because Eno claims they were all scribbled down at the last minute, not at all premeditated, in a sort of self-imposed panic. This is also when Brian Eno began developing what I think was one of his most ingenious innovations, the Oblique Strategies. These are literally a set of cards you pick from to determine what to do in a dilemma situation. Examples include "Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element," "Listen to the quiet voice," and "What are you really thinking about just now? Incorporate." Who comes up with this stuff! Apparently Phoenix used the Oblique Strategies on their album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

Later in his career, Eno pioneered something amazing called Generative Music, a concept similar to the random sounds produced by wind blowing against wind-chimes, applied to electronic music. You have a set of predetermined outcomes, the use of which is then determined by your input. For Eno, this concept began to develop here, on Tiger Mountain, with the his use of the Oblique Strategies.

I have a hard time believing that Brian Eno did not premeditate the song "Mother Whale Eyeless." This song contains one of my all-time favorite lyrics. In the middle of the song, the music changes to this jaunty, downward spiraling keyboard, and a woman sings "In my town, there is a raincoat under a tree/ In the sun, there is a cloud containing the sea/ In the sea, there is a whale without any eyes/ In the whale, there is a man without his raincoat." Added bonus: Phill Collins as guest drummer, absolutely tearing it up toward the end of this song. And the hilariously subtle lyric "I'm wasting fingers like I had them to spare."

I could only find this song online in a Youtube video. The video is just the album cover with the song playing. Right-click and open it in a new tab. You'll be glad you did! You can download the whole album from my file at the bottom of this post.

Brian Eno - "Mother Whale Eyeless"

I realize that this review is probably fast becoming longer than you're interested in reading. So I am going to do you a favor and shorten it up a bit, (I'm new at this music blogging business, give me a week or so to figure it out before sending any angry emails).

Eno's technical prowess as a sound engineer, and the incredible talent of the musicians assembled for this album, in fact the most stable lineup of bandmates Eno ever had, are no more apparent on Tiger Mountain than on the insanely hyper, proto-punk, non-stop overdrive track "Third Uncle." If you can, put your headphones on before you listen to this one, and turn it up loud. Pulsing bass guitar sets the tone for the track. Guitars oscillate wildly from right to left. The drums and percussion on this track must be heard to be believed. Really, Robert Wyatt is absolutely slaying on percussion. If you were being chased by opium-crazed bandits through the thickest jungles of China at 100 miles per hour, this would be the soundtrack. This is Brian Eno laying the groundwork for Joy Division.

Again I apologize for the Youtube link. Download the album from my mediafire file if you want to hear the whole thing album in decent quality.

Brian Eno - "Third Uncle"

"The True Wheel" is I think the most pop song on the whole Tiger record. It starts out like any great modern synth-pop tune, squealing and oscillating and twisting and turning. Lyrics are great, even funny at times. "Looking for a certain ratio/ someone must have left it underneath the carpet/ Looking up and down the radio/ Uh oh! Nothing there this time!" This is probably my favorite number off the entire album. Again, crappy Youtube link.

Brian Eno - "The True Wheel"

Any fan of strange, English prog/pop music is going to love Taking Tiger Mountiain. If you don't know much about Brian Eno, if maybe all you know about him is "Isn't he that weird, bald, ambient music guy?" then I would highly recommend giving this album a chance. If you have a high tolerance for dark and confusing songs, or insanity in general, you're going to enjoy the hell out of this record. Brian Eno's talent for recording studio wizardry only escalated immensely from here, I could babble on about it but I will spare you. The album's closing track, "Taking Tiger Mountain," a gently, piano-laced soft number, informs but couldn't begin to glimpse the musical territory Brian Eno was to later traverse. I can think of no better way to end a review of Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) than with this particular track.

Brian Eno - "Taking Tiger Mountain"

"We climbed and we climbed, oh how we climbed. . .over the stars to take Tiger Mountain"


Buy (Amazon)
Try (my file)