Here Come the Warm Jets

Though Brian Eno moved like a rock star during his tenure with Roxy Music, many fans no doubt wondered exactly what this strange, somewhat vampiric-looking knob-twiddler was actually doing on stage, as he played no conventional instruments and frequently boasted of his musical amateurism. All such queries would be lain aside in 1974, when Eno released Here Come the Warm Jets—the first in a series of deliriously fractured pop records whose revolutionary sounds would turn rock music on its ear. Even today, the opening blast of "Needle in the Camel's Eye" sounds like a message from the future, with its layered guitar tracks phased into dreamy oblivion underlying Eno's sinister croon. Though Eno himself was a musical amateur, he directs his handpicked team of collaborators—including King Crimson's Robert Fripp and a large part of Roxy Music's lineup—with visionary boldness, placing jarring moments of virtuosity amidst a madman's collage of found sounds and treated effects. Sweetly accessible and yet musically adventurous, Here Come the Warm Jets is one of the most important records of the early '70s.