Name: Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
Brand: EMI MKTG
SKU: 1442737
Price: 5.63 USD
Availability: InStock

Taking Tiger Mountain

Rating

Album: Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Burning Airlines Give You So Much More	More Info...	0:03
2)	Back in Judy's Jungle	More Info...	0:05
3)	Fat Lady of Limbourg	More Info...	0:05
4)	Mother Whales Eyeless	More Info...	0:05
5)	The Great Pretender	More Info...	0:05
6)	Third Uncle	More Info...	0:05
7)	Put a Straw Under Baby	More Info...	0:03
8)	The True Wheel	More Info...	0:05
9)	China My China	More Info...	0:04
10)	Taking Tiger Mountain	More Info...	0:05

Album: Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Burning Airlines Give You So Much More	More Info...	0:03
2)	Back in Judy's Jungle	More Info...	0:05
3)	Fat Lady of Limbourg	More Info...	0:05
4)	Mother Whales Eyeless	More Info...	0:05
5)	The Great Pretender	More Info...	0:05
6)	Third Uncle	More Info...	0:05
7)	Put a Straw Under Baby	More Info...	0:03
8)	The True Wheel	More Info...	0:05
9)	China My China	More Info...	0:04
10)	Taking Tiger Mountain	More Info...	0:05

Performer Notes

Personnel: Brian Eno (vocals, keyboards, electronics); Phil Manzanera (guitar); Fred Smith (drums); Robert Wyatt (percussion, background vocals); David Hill (electronics).
Arrangers: Phil Manzanera; Brian Eno.
TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN (BY STRATEGY), Brian Eno's sophomore solo outing, is a grab bag of freaky, science-fiction-dipped confections. Filled with a battery of innovative, unsettling effects, the album is darker and more complex than HERE COME THE WARM JETS. The artist shows an increasing willingness to experiment with texture, as on "The Great Pretender," whose whirling, oozing keyboard line and synthesized vocals approximate delirium tremens or a hatching hive of maggots, or on "Put A Straw Under Baby," which features the Portsmouth Sinfonia, whose members have no knowledge of their instruments.
Yet Eno's grasp of melody and songcraft is everywhere: on the bouncing, absurdist/philosophical "Burning Airlines (Give You So Much More)," and on straight-out rockers, like the deliciously intense "Third Uncle" (which is propelled by the churning guitar of Roxy Music's Phil Manzenera, and is, arguably, the album's highlight). Concurrent with David Bowie's ALADDIN SANE-era alien aesthetic, Eno's tunes are even more otherwordly and warped than his glam cohort, making use of the full palette of bizarro synthesizer effects and creepy-cheeky postures. The songs, however, are as inventive and appealing as their treatments, and make for Eno's most solid--and experimental--pop album. TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN holds up magnificently, even years on in the artist's brilliant career.

Professional Reviews

Uncut (p.102) - 5 stars out of 5 - "Eno has done more than anyone to bring us round to the pleasures of texture over text..."

Mojo (Publisher) (p.123) - 3 stars out of 5 - "Silly songs, quirky playing, bizarre chord changes are all there..."