Brian Eno
Here Come the Warm Jets

THE REVIEW

Am I a pirate, am I a gentleman? Or am I just an old senile fool? Please, don't be mean. Meanwhile, let's assume I'm a sort of gentleman, no matter if I say it myself.

Thinking about where I come from, a place without a book at home and where the aesthetic was like a bargain store, well, in the end, I got lucky.

Sure, I grew up on snacks and television, so, obviously, I can't be that great.

From the little I had, though, Giamburrasca/Alan Ford/Arsenio Lupin/Cochi e Renato/Peanuts, I found what I needed to live a little like on the moon, unrolling my personal carpet of fantasy.

It was an attic, it was a basement, with the small recorder always on, Battisti first, De Gregori then. And Deep Red with its scary music.

And then finally albums like this one that at first listen made you say “come on!”, but slowly you got there...

We were small though, and so we used to laugh to defend ourselves. Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, oh please!!! Better, much better, Cico Felipe Cayetano Lopez Martinez Y Gonzalez. We definitely got Zagor better.

After all, we didn't notice the ugliness around us, the tasteless sloppiness was the only possible world. Then if we finally noticed it, it's also thanks to albums like this.

Indeed, the albums.

All that intelligence came to us precisely with the music, that is, with a direct and, so to speak, physical aesthetic experience.

Then came the books, of course....

And then, again, that type of intelligence that needs neither books nor music.

But, let's be clear, they are all things that only brushed by me.

I'm nothing but a fool...

...

“Hello automatism”

“Hello emotion”...

“What the hell are you saying, Lulù?”

“Don't worry, I'll get there”

...

Et voilà, a melody like a magic lantern or crystal ball, then the aristocratic ennui of the voice. And be satisfied, because I can't describe it better.

Above all, though, it's what comes next, like a small keyboard thrown in a blender and then sautéed...

It reminded me of a mechanical organ or a close relative. Also because Eno had an uncle and this uncle had one of those strange gadgets at home.

“Automatism and emotion”, thought our young man. And this is the first thing, the fact that, indeed, the young man was a thinking head.

The second thing is that it’s nice that opposing concepts exchange a greeting, albeit from afar. And this thing happens here, track eight or nine of this album...

And so:

“Hello automatism”

“Hello emotion”...

...

Magic chest of the absolute beginner, this album feels doubly youthful, mine I imagine, but also that of certain music.

That everything here is for the first time, after all, who had ever heard of things like the chamber of secrets, or the blender/crucible creator and devourer of sounds?

And all possible relationships between three-letter words (art/pop) and a four-letter one (play) are contemplated, with the latter intended especially as unpredictability and play. Soccer is beautiful thanks to the madness of the ball.

...

Here we inhabit a world between chance and control, between the wheel of fortune and science, as if an incongruous link united in the same person Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio.

So here is a surprising freshness “cum grano salis”. A very personal “grammar of fantasy”, that if there is a logic there is also a fantastic one, and here both logic and fantastic exist...

And everything holds together: distorted vintage sounds, the foggy decadence, the still glam sparkle, the explosions from a modern little chemist, and a lot of new wave ahead of its time.

Not to mention certain songs that are proof that even a dandy sings in the shower. And he does it, among other things, with a very egghead art school voice.

In short, a masterpiece...

Trallallà...