2. EnoHere Come The Warm Jets
I discovered this album when I was 16, right around the time I met Lockett [Pundt, Deerhunter guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist], I think it was one of the first things I talked to him about. I discovered it because it was written about in detail in this book that goes off on a strange analysis of this album in the middle of the narrative, especially the second half of it (which is my favourite half). This is before it was reissued on CD too, so it was hard! It wasn’t like some Faust bootleg I could just download like now. So I went through all these shops in Athens and finally I found a used CD copy of it.
Obviously when I got older I did a lot of research and went online, and became this Eno expert, but I’m fondest of my first impressions of that album. Anyway, the thing with Eno is that even if you think you know what he was going for, half of it was probably just a mistake anyway. Accidental in an intentional way. And I feel like a lot of my work wouldn’t be the same if I hadn’t had that idea slipped in there at a young age. Half of what I do is completely the same! If I was to compare myself to anybody it would probably be Eno, in terms of technique. Not in terms of aesthetic, and certainly not in terms of taste in romantic partners. It’s very straight, and erotic, you know? People often asked me how I was so prolific at this certain point – and I never really got less prolific, I just don’t share stuff the same way any more because there’s too much stuff out there anyway – but it’s because I just never really stop. It’s like a chemistry set, just adding elements here and there, seeing what sticks, and making mistakes.
The track I was most obsessed with was the title track, because it’s just such a fragment of a song. The drums don’t even really interlock. It just sounds like several records playing at the same time! And I was discovering film-makers at this same time, like Tarkovsky, and the thing with his films is the way music occasionally creeps in. I had the same thing listening to that song, just thinking: "What is happening?!" God knows what he’s singing about too, but that single song to me is the sound of my youth. The awkwardness of the percussion and the accidental nature of it, and the warm beauty of it. Plus the two drum sets. Since hearing that album I’ve always recorded two drum sets. On every demo.
