Here Come The Warm Jets

Still reminiscing about first hearing Here Come the Warm Jets and the long-term effect it's had on me, although I do realize now that it was released in 1974, not 1973.  Doesn't change a thing.  It was still 30 years ahead of it's time.

The outcome of hearing an album in 1974 that was 30 years ahead of its time, and playing it over and over until the sound was firmly entrenched in my mind, is that all my life, almost everything else has sounded, well, retro.  Punk, post-punk, new wave, industrial, alternative, indie - all of those sounds are somewhere to be found in the grooves of this record.  There was nothing new to hear that wasn't already familiar to me until 30 years later, 2004 or '05.  It was only then that music regained it's ability to surprise me with something new, to amaze me, to give me the same sensation that I first got from 70s-vintage Eno.  Hence, some of the  preoccupation with music in my life and on the pages of this blog in recent years.

The Buddha once noted that even though the body and the mind get old, the instant of consciousness is always fresh and doesn't seem to age.  This LP seems to have that forever-fresh flash of consciousness, that shock of recognition, and listening to it now, even though it's been in heavy rotation for all of my adult life, I still feel like I'm hearing the future of music for the very first time.