TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN (BY STRATEGY)

Apparently this was inspired by a book of postcards depicting scenes from a Chinese Commie opera known as Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy. Harumphh! and Bah! That's enough to lose it one star right away.

Musically it''s pretty much on a par with 'Here Come the Warm Jets from '73 in terms of an overall score, but is a bit more refined.

Some parts are quite experimental, in particular the guitars. This sounds nothing like the 'sleepy bed music' that the ambient egg head once known as 'Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno' was better known for in later years... I wish I had a name as pretentious as that.

No wonder he needed to get out of Roxy Music with a head so choc full of ideas that were so diametrically opposed to Brian Ferry's. I guess Eno was never really IN Roxy Music when all is said and done. I always thought he looked like he was in a huff every time I saw him playing with them.

There's a few tracks that clearly influenced other bands -

'The Fat Lady of Limbourg' is straight off Mick Karn's 'Titles' from '82

'Third Uncle' was covered (brilliantly) by Bauhaus in '82

'The True Wheel' sounds like 'Neu' in '75 minus the vocals.

'Taking Tiger Mountain's' biggest similarity is with Bowie's mid 70's efforts "Low" and "Heroes" from which he took most of the artistic credit seeing as Bowie could hardly string a coherent sentence together at that time.

With the exception of the rather dull 'Put a Straw Under Baby' this album is more or less brilliant, with plenty of unusual goings on, multi-layered vocals and very strangely treated instruments for 1974.