TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN (BY STRATEGY)

Upon first listen, Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy appears to be much weaker than Eno's first album. There's very little of the playfulness, for lack of a better term, found on Here Come the Warm Jets. However, as happens with many of these affairs, the album begins to reveal itself given repeated listenings. I would even recommend headphones, as much of the enjoyable detail in the music is very understated and low in the mix. This is not an album that runs up and grabs the listener; rather it sidles up somewhat like a cat and slowly insinuates itself.

One underlying theme is the cliched Mysterious, Inscrutable East, unknowable to a Westerner (Sweet Regina's gone to China...). Another perhaps is subterfuge (Maybe she will do a bit of spying...). And perhaps there's just a bit of a dig at the music industry in all this too.

The songs, as mentioned, slowly reveal themselves. Particularly enjoyable are the pentatonic strangeness of Burning Airlines Give You So Much More, the menacing lyrics of The Fat Lady of Limbourg, the Floydian bass line that kicks off Third Uncle, the semi-nonsensical lyrics of Put A Straw Under Baby, and the hymn- like structure of the title track. Eno's synths and Manzanera's guitars are excellent throughout, though often, as mentioned, often understated.

The Great Wheel is the one throwback rocker that recalls Warm Jets:

Looking up and down the radio, Uh-oh nothing there this time!

All in all, not a bad second outing for Eno, though in the end I rate it neither higher nor lower.

"Taking Tiger Mountain (By Stragedy)" is the 2nd full-length studio album by UK experimental rock artist Brian Eno. The album was released through Island Records in November 1974. After Brian Eno left Roxy Music he opted to start a solo career which spawned his debut full-length studio album "Here Come The Warm Jets (1973)". That album featured quite a few guest musicians, which is something Brian Eno has limited on "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Stragedy)". however the album still features guest appearances by prolific musicians like Phil Manzanera, Phil Collins and Robert Wyatt.

The music on the album is predominantly vers/chorus structured rock with the occasional more artsy edge. The tracks are centered around Brian Eno´s generally melodic and memorable vocal lines. Even though Brian Eno is a keyboard player you shouldn´t expect too much keyboard noodling here. The compositions are in focus not complex playing. With that said there are lots of innovative keyboard playing on the album, it just functions as backing to the vocals. Brian Eno´s voice reminds me a bit of David Bowie paired with Bryan Ferry. That´s also the two artists the music generally reminds me the most about. But there´s a distinct Beatles influence in some of the tracks too. Brian Eno´s love for doo woob and r´n´b also shines through more than one place on "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Stragedy)". This is easily asseccible music but the way the tracks are arranged provides the album with a level of sophistication you rarely hear on mainstream recordings.

The sound production is professional and very well sounding. A very modern and fresh sounding production considering the album was released in 1974. Upon conclusion "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Stragedy)" is a good quality second album by Brian Eno. It´s not quite as surprising as his excellent debut but definitely a nice listening experience. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is well deserved.

Second Brian Eno solo album. Eno in transition. Still not to his ambient kingdom, but just from melodic Roxy Music art-glam-pop-rock songs of his debut to more ambient - filled sound and rhythm games of his perfect "Another Green World".

So, what do we have here? I think it's a side-track, Eno in searching of new ideas and sounds. Some of them will be widely used by him later, but this album is more testings of future music.

I fully understands that for many listeners this album isn't too much attractive: Eno missed melodies there. Main interest is evolution of multi-textured sound of his first album ( or of Roxy Music, if you want) and changes in rhythms. as a result we have very interesting multy-texture here mixed with quite plain and melody-less songs and proto-new wave rhythmics.

In total, music of that album slightly valuates from last Roxy Music-kind nuances through 10 cc multitextured music to some very original (for that time) african rhythms ( you can clearly hear here some future Talking Heads music).

So, for those, who is interested in evolution of Eno music, roots of his later producing works with Talking Heads and some Bowie albums, album is quite interesting. For regular listeners it coud be in some moments boring because of lack of melodism, some monotonious sound and proto-new wave simplicity in arrangements.

Brian Eno's second album, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) sheds much of the punk attributes that the previous album, Here Come The Warm Jets had, but retains much of the same feeling. The band is fairly static on this one, and mostly features the guitars of Phil Manzanera, giving this one a sound similar to 801. Eno's wordplay on this album is in fine form, making songs like Back In Judy's Jungle, The Fat Lady Of Limbourg and of course Third Uncle, a joy to listen to. The music here is more sparse than the previous album, often giving it an eerie tone. And it works. For the Eno initiate, start with the early albums, they are much much better than his later output. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

Brian Eno´s second solo efford is not as interesting and varied as his first, Here Comes The Warm Jets. It seemed he was still struggling to find his own sound. And Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) is maybe his popiest atempt ever, even if his eletronic processings are all there too. The album´s opener, Burning Airlines Give You So Much is pleasing enough and it also includes one of his most famous (and better) songs in the form of the great Third Uncle (Bill MacCormick´s bass lines are unforgetable!). I didn´t find the remaining tracks all that inspired, but they were also interesting and all had Eno´s trademark treatment which is quite unique and, at the time, very innovative.

The production is of course something very well done, and the musicians involved are all top notch. Taking Tiger Mountain can be seen as a transitional work and has its merits. It is not an easy listening album, but after a few spins it grows on you and each time you hear it you´ll find more nuances and details. Like a more avant guard version of his former band Roxy Music. It may not always work, but that´s something most early RM fans would like to hear, I guess. In other words, savory, but for special tastes. 3 stars.

Brian Eno's first shot at a solo career might not have been as successful as his work with Roxy Music but his sophomore release definitely showed signs of maturity. In fact I'll go on the record and proclaim it my favorite Eno album from his early years, meaning up until Before and After Science!

Taking Tiger Mountain features a lot less electronic experimentation than on Here Come The Warm Jets and it might even be considered one of Eno's least interesting releases from a Progressive Electronic point of reference. But who cares about all that when the music here is so good. The album is literally packed with great material, something that I consider to be completely absent on his debut album. The whole first side of this release could easily be copy & pasted into an eventual greatest hits compilation as a perfect example of how good of an Art-Rock artist Brian Eno could actually be. Every track starting with Burning Airlines Give You So Much More and all the way up to Third Uncle is pure Eno gold!

While listening to this album one might wonder how many more of these great compositions are still in store here. Surely, no artist could possibly go from a completely lackluster debut album to a complete masterpiece in such a short time span? This is of course where the cracks begin to show and starting with Put A Straw Under Baby the composition quality slowly but steadily starts to decline. The True Wheel is where Eno, once again, tries to imitate Brian Ferry's vocals but fails to do so resulting in a long and boring performance. China My China is another one of the songs that I've honestly never liked for its bland melody and uninspired delivery. Luckily the album's title track brings a fairly decent closure to the album and reminds me once again of the great material that it featured.

An excellent album for fans of creative Art-Rock compositions. This is far from the Progressive Electronic territory that Brian Eno will explore on his consecutive albums still there is enough great music to keep most progressive rock fans entertained.

***** star songs: Burning Airlines Give You So Much More (3:18) The Fat Lady Of Limbourg (5:05) The Great Pretender (5:11) Third Uncle (4:48)

**** star songs: Back In Judy's Jungle (5:16) Mother Whale Eyeless (5:46) Put A Straw Under Baby (3:25) Taking Tiger Mountain (5:33)

Eno changed. This is a much slower album than Warm Jets, and it has a far greater emphasis on the kind of repetition that was shown in "On Some Faraway Beach" and would largely dominate (in a much more potent form) Eno's later work. However, this is a slowing down, not a full-blown foray into statics like what one would later find on Another Green World, and it doesn't always really work. Eno's melody-writing talent regularly shows itself, as does his unequalled mastery of the studio and the ability to make guitars, keyboards and other assorted tools come together perfectly (which helps explain why lots of people consider this his peak, and also explains why, despite the fact that I'll seemingly be complaining about this album a lot, I'm giving it a high rating), but the album also seriously drags in more than a couple of places; simply put, I can't really see how this album can justifiably run for more than 48 minutes.

The strongest example of what I mean by saying the album drags comes from the three track stretch of "The Fat Lady of Limbourg," "Mother Whale Eyeless" and "The Great Pretender." I consider all three of these to be good songs overall, yes, but that doesn't mean I like any of them in their entirety. "The Fat Lady of Limbourg" comes the closest to completely satisfying me, as a creepy, quasi-mournful number driven by a memorable repeated "that's what we're paid for" line, but five minutes of it just seems like overkill to me. The relatively upbeat portions of "Mother Whale Eyeless" are standard high quality Eno, but the upwards bit that he sings in other parts just sounds incredibly awkward to my ears; I can tell he's trying to be hypnotic with it, but I'm just not as impressed with this as I am with the efforts he'd start showing within a year. And as for "The Great Pretender," well, I'd more or less be fine with the whole track were it not for the last fifty seconds consisting of a single noise set on endless loop. Too bad, seeing as I like the vocals and atmosphere, even if the melody continues to elude my memory.

In any case, the biggest problem I have with these tracks comes not from their individual characteristics, but from the way that, collectively, they just seemingly slooooow the album to a craaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwl. For whatever reason, these tracks feed off each other in a way that makes them each sound way more sluggish than they do individually; for an artist like Eno, who showed such a knack in his prime for making albums greater than the sum of their tracks, it's disappointing to hear the opposite effect at work.

I'm not an enormous fan of the last two tracks either, though I do think they're both quite good. "China my China" is a song that I enjoy plenty while it's on, but even after a ton of listens, I still can't remember how it goes once it's done ... on the other hand, it deserves major, MAJOR props for probably being the only song in the world to feature a typewriter solo (!!!). The closing title track, then, is rather pretty and calming, making effective use of what's basically a two-note guitar melody. In other words, it's good; it's just not mindblowingly cathartic, which (justly or not) is the standard I've set for mellow Eno ballads. It would be a near-masterpiece by the standards of most bands, though

The other five tracks are pretty much great, and (as mentioned earlier) largely different from what one would have expected in the wake of Warm Jets. "Third Uncle" is a fantastic up-tempo paranoid rocker, with Manzanera strumming at a lightning-fast rate (and throwing in some awfully intense yet almost psychedelic overdubs) and Eno delivering his lines in a way that could almost be considered rapping (there's not really any pitch changes, after all). It comes closer than anything else here to the style of Warm Jets, but even then there's a stripped-down aggression that not even "Needles in the Camel's Eye" (which is much poppier than "Third Uncle") or "Baby's on Fire" could match.

The opening "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" is a fabulous opener, with a playful theme that's instantly identifiable as a tweak on traditional Chinese note sequences and with a delightful vocal melody and lyrics about goodness knows what (not in a pretentious way, though). The following "Back in Judy's Jungle" ostensibly matches with the concept suggested by the album title, with lyrics that in places read like military orders and reports and a part that almost breaks into a war march (though this is simultaneously a waltz, strangely enough), but it too is tweaked through Dadaist rearrangments of lines into something that is completely unpredictable from start to finish.

Finally, on side two, we get a couple of other major highlights. "Put a Straw Under Baby" is a hilarious lullaby with infamous lines like, "There's a brain in the table, there's a heart in the chair, and they all live in Jesus; it's a family affair" and with great imitations of recorders from Eno's synths. It's also notable because, after "Back in Judy's Jungle," it's the first track to resurrect even a feel of China in the music, even if the lyrics have nothing to do with it. And finally, "The True Wheel" is a high-quality stomping Bowie-esque piano-rocker with big anthemic, "We Are The 801!" chants by a mini children's choir interspersed between Eno's warblings and spiced up by yet some more great minimalistic Manzanera guitar work (I swear, this man is getting dangerously close to cracking my Top 5 Guitarists list). And man, do I ever dig Eno's "We are the ..." vocal lines in what essentially works as an extended coda to the piece.

So in total, this is one heck of an inconsistent album, but the high points are so neat that I can't help but give this a very high grade. Eno would do better things, yes, but it's a significant step forward (after all, as great as Warm Jets was, it still largely tied in with Eno's Roxy Music past) and thus a near necessity for all decent musical historians. Just make sure that you get his other "big" albums first.

There is quite a difference between the first two Eno albums, far less input from guests on this one and it's more straightforward. I agree with UMUR's assessment that this second one is less innovative, and yes you could call it experimental Pop / Rock. It's so catchy and enjoyable though, which is why I think the first two albums are rated fairly evenly by fans. I found it to be a bit of a letdown after the debut but have since enjoyed it's merits.

"Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" is a mid paced, catchy tune. Cool lyrics too. "Back In Judy's Jungle" is another mid paced toe tapper. Some whistling and prominant bass too. "The Fat Lady Of Limburg" features almost spoken words with not a lot going on. It does become quite catchy though it's still minimalisitic. "Mother Whale Eyeless" opens with vocals then a beat kicks in. It settles again as contrasts continue,although it's mostly upbeat and so catchy. "The Great Pretender" is slower paced with interesting sounds. Kind of experimental actually. Vocals are almost spoken. It sounds like a master race of crickets to end it. "Third Uncle" has a cool FLOYD-like bass intro before it kicks in quickly. Vocals before 1 1/2 minutes. A good uptempo track. Nice guitar before 4 minutes. "Put A Straw Under Baby" doesn't do a lot for me. It's kind of silly. "The True Wheel" is a fun song and more upbeat. "China My China" is led by strummed guitar and vocals but it turns a little avant before 2 minutes. "Taking Tiger Mountain" is different. It has piano and is laid back throughout. Vocals after 2 1/2 minutes.

So 3.5 stars for this one and 4 stars for his debut.

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.

Brian Eno's second release maintains practically the same levels as the debut, and starts concerning more about politics, Oriental culture, and espionage.

"Taking Tiger Mountain", compared to "Here Come The Warm Jets" , is much darker, musically, but especially lyrically speaking. Despite this, the musical style remains pretty much the same; memorable melodies, fascinating arrangements, and oddities here and there. Eno's vocals though aren't so quirky anymore; he seems to prefer a more "normal" type of singing, without any nasal or exaggerated excerpts. Even in this record Eno had many people helping him and surrounding him; The dear friends Robert Fripp and Phil Manzanera on guitars, Robert Wyatt on drums and percussion ( the recording of this album was prior to the terrible incident of this one), and many others. Phil Collins also joins in for one song, on drums.

"Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)", like I mentioned earlier, is focused, thematically speaking, on the Chinese revolution, Maoism, and espionage. In fact, "Taking Tiger Mountain" was originally the name of a Chinese opera, that concerned these themes. Even in this album the artist uses his typical, unusual method in putting down lyrics: singing nonsense syllables to himself, put them on paper, and find a sense creating words and phrases. The lyrics, in this way, are eccentric, but very fascinating.

Despite Taking Tiger Mountain isn't quite as masterful as "Here Come The Warm Jets", it has some brilliant songs, that sometimes are even better than the ones from the debut: "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More", "The Fat Lady Of Limbourg", "Mother Whale Eyeless","The Big Wheel" are excellent examples of songs that maintain the same style that the first album had. We also find some different approaches: "The Great Pretender" is very electronic and very fresh sounding, and "Third Uncle" is proto punk piece. To be mentioned has to be the wonderful title track, a great outro to the album and intro to the following Eno album, "Another Green World", possibly his finest masterpiece.

In conclusion, a terrific album, a second album not quite as good as the previous one, but still very highly recommended.

I am still looking for great and inventive stuff that were available on the superb debut Roxy album (which is one of my five per cent five stars album on this site).

What I am listened to is merely average pop music from the seventies. To call this prog electronic is beyond my abilities. But I don't decide if a band should belong to this or that on PA. Still!!! I only I could have been asked a couple of times?

This album does not even hold any electronic music part. Some decent but grotesque and funny feel during "Back In Judy's Jungle" and that's it. This sophomore "Eno" album is just on par with his first one: somewhat of a gigantic hype.

He was great with Roxy (or is it reverse?). But as a solo artist, he couldn't really thrill me so far. OK, this is only his second effort. I guess that I have to leave him some more time. And I will of course, since my reviewing process is working towards the clock.

Still the weak, repetitive and totally boring "The Fat Lady of Limbourg" is of no good indication as far as the whole of this album is concerned; nor is the dreadful "Great pretender" which is just a wonderful "press next" piece of stuff as far as I am concerned.

Some freshness though can be heard during the good "Mother Whale Eyeless". Very much upbeat and Roxy oriented. No wonder that I like it so much! But the whole of this release is quite poorly balanced. A noisy "Third Uncle", and then an insipid and folkish "Straw Under Baby" which is really one of the bottom lows here. What else??? IMHHO, this album is, at best, premonitory of the new wave scene ("True Wheel") but it has nothing to do in the prog electronic genre. The music that one can experience is rather difficult to categorize. And I won't try.

But the whole of this listening doesn't peak higher than two stars in my book.

Another strong solo album from Eno, this time around he used a more consistent set of musicians and relied less on a revolving cast of guests, giving the album a more consistent sound from track to track. From the driving, hypnotic proto-punk of Third Uncle (which drips the influence of Neu! from every pore) to alternatingly sentimental and strange material like Burning Airlines or Mother Whale Eyeless, Eno crafts a sonic world with a consistent atmosphere of subdued melancholy about it. Perhaps not as diverse as Here Come the Warm Jets, but where that had furious creative energy this has a contemplative and deliberate approach to music-making which rewards repeated listens.

Having been freed as a member of Roxy Music, BRIAN ENO wasted no time delving into his myriad projects with not only one but two super strong solo albums emerging in 1974. The first release "Here Come The Warm Jets" managed to forge a new branch of the glam rock meets art pop started out by Roxy Music albeit with a completely new indie pop quirk absent from Bryan Ferry's vernacular. At the tail end of the year ENO unleashed his second offering in the form of the bizarrely titled TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN (BY STRATEGY) which was meant to be a loose concept album inspired by a series of postcards of a Chinese revolutionary opera. The themes and concepts attempt to tackle everything from espionage to the Chinese Communist revolution and found ENO taking a darker tone lyrically all the while crafting a bouncier and more upbeat art pop sound than his debut.

TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN (BY STRATEGY) also focuses on a core of five musicians without the lengthy roster of guest musicians on the debut. From his Roxy Music days he was joined by Phil Manzanera on guitars as well as Brian Turrington on bass, Freddie Smith on drums and a special guest appearance by none other than Robert Wyatt who provided percussion as well as backing vocals. Manzanera is notable for being a prime player on the album with not only his stellar guitar contributions but his role in assistant producer which allows an anything goes sort of approach to the album and as a result exudes an air of eccentricity above and beyond anything in the Roxy Music playbook. To further the mystique of the album, ENO and his friend Peter Schmidt developed a set of instruction cards called Oblique Strategies that would dictate certain decisions about the recording process, therefore completely random ideas were thrown in on the mere whim of which card dictated what, an eccentricity that ENO was famous for entertaining.

While lyrically TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN (BY STRATEGY) is connected by a nebulous conceptual theme of sorts, musically the album is all over the place with quirky indie pop hooks and the peculiar the only commonalities. Right from the very first notes of "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More," it's apparent that the pop hooks are heavily embellished by off-kilter out of tune counterpoints, slightly off center harmonic overdubs and intricate little guitar riffs that sound as if they are on the verge of complete abandonment but somehow finding resounding resolution. The jittery marching rhythms that exude tracks like "Back In Judy's Jungle" find themselves popping up in unexpected ways and early doses of post-punk even find their way in Turrington's bass abuse on the ahead of its time "Third Uncle" which distinguishes the accidental playing of a key finding its way into legendary status especially after having been covered by Bauhaus.

Despite the effort to create a less abrasive and more minimalistic album that forged a more uniform sound, TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN (BY STRATEGY) is a monstrously wild album that traverses the quirkiest aspects of avant-pop coupled with the earliest forms of art rock teased out into a never ending series of arhythmic patterns, cannonades of jangle guitar and Asian overtones. The post-punk connections cannot be understated as many post-Sex Pistols punk rockers have taken many of the more aggressive aspects of TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN to heart. ENO single handedly managed to give birth to an incredibly diverse mix of styles that remain influential in the modern day. Through the wild and woolly glam rock ride of "The True Wheel" to the more subdued title track that ends the album and points to a more electronically infused future, this sophomore album unleashes a surprisingly diverse palette of indie quirk.

Like many of the early ENO albums, TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN (BY STRATEGY) exudes an uncanny prescience of musical trends that hadn't yet come into fruition. ENO always seemed like he had his hands on an invisible pulse that only came into the limelight years later. This album percolates an infinite number of ideas that would eventually express themselves in much larger musical scenes. It's hard to believe that BRIAN ENO is mostly known for his ambient and electronic music when such Earth shattering indie rock found on his earliest recordings exists. This is some of the most fascinating music to exist in a rock context and while it's utterly infectious even upon first exposure, it contains just enough weirdness to continue to be exciting decades after its inception. For my money, this second offering of 1974 is a step above the first and that's a pretty tall order. Nerd music for nerd's paradise.