This is almost an Eno/Manzanera album, such is Phil Manzanera's significant contribution as arranger, co-producer and performer throughout. Manzanera is a highly under-valued guitarist and was the first with which Eno experimented, using treatments to manipulate his basic guitar sound. As a second album this is much more consistent sounding with more of a band feel than "Here Come the Warm Jets". Lyrically it is just as oblique and fanciful with vividly weird tales of men inside whales without raincoats and black eggs melting into candles.

The blueprint to his work with Talking Heads is on this album. Listen to the jagged guitars, pumping bass and hissing electronic percussion on this and then compare to "More Songs about Buildings and Food". Taking Tiger Mountain like the majority of Eno's output is years ahead of it's time. Being a non-musician he had no regard or pre-conceptions about what and what could not be sonically done. He just did it!

A classic piece of new wave thrashing is "Third Uncle", with Manzanera never sounding so manic. I prefer the version on "801 Live" but there is no denying the intensity and originality on display. The centrepiece of the album is "The True Wheel" with it's wonderfully infectious squelchy electronic backing, fuelled by Manzanera's riffing guitar. The female chorus sing about being the 801 with Eno looking for a certain ratio. Amazing stuff. "China My China IS prototype Talking Heads, with Manzanera showing the way for David Byrne. There is a hint of Eno's impending ambient ambitions on the title track, with its gorgeous Harold Budd-like piano motif.

So, another original, individual album made even more remarkable set against the times in which it was made.

A couple of comments about these re-issues. They are minimally packaged in digipaks which are housed in transparent plastic slip cases. These are not remasters as such, but new transfers taken from the original master tapes using the new Direct Stream Digital (DSD) format. This is state of the art as regards mastering onto compact disc. They have been transferred by Simon Heyworth who is one of the best in the business. He has made statements about the remastering of these recordings. Why change something that was done right originally! Eno was happy with the original mastering so what is needed is just the best transfer onto compact disc that is currently feasible. Whereas the original CD's sounded flat and thin, these transfers are much livelier and offer a fuller, more detailed sound.

It is hard for me to review Tiger Mountain without resorting to the most fawning, gushing language of which fandom is capable. I will attempt here to be a bit restrained and objective, but the plain fact is that if some supremely evil dictator decreed tomorrow that no citizen could own more than a single CD, I would choose this one as my lifelong companion: It has beauty, excitement, charm, sensuality, intelligence, and -- oh yes, by the way -- mystery.

Tiger Mountain is Eno's magnum opus. Though Another Green World is probably his stylistic apex, that work lacks Tiger's emotional highs and overall resonance and energy. Though his first solo album redefined what popular music could be, this one puts the polish on that initial redefinition.

From the apoplectic onset of Burning Airlines, one is seduced into a blurry Wonderland of connotation and denotation, meaning and nonsense, wakefulness, dreams and nightmares, where one becomes complicit in one's own confusion until the slow polar sweep of the title track fades out.....Eno's mastery of sonic texture is never more apparent; his alchemical blending of timbres both traditional and novel never more glittering. Having once heard the counterpoint of Robert Wyatt's innocent falsetto and Portsmouth Sinfonia's sweetly off-key cadences, is it possible either to forget Put A Straw Under Baby or to imagine the song scored in any other fashion?

The redolence and wit of the lyrics as well is unsurpassed, invoking a broad nexus of meanings without enforcing any one in particular. Despite their restive refusal to be pinned down, the words are often startlingly memorable. For instance, it is delightful if profitless to speculate upon what piety may be contained in: "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."

Released in 1974, Tiger Mountain has aged well. Twenty-five plus years later, this creative and influential rock endeavor does not show any signs of staleness. On repeated listenings, new surprises continue to well up from its depths. What more could one ask of any long-term relationship?

I just recieved this cd and I was very impressed. I knew of Brian Eno from his numerous production duties of such giants as U2 and Talking Heads, but this is very much his own thing. He sounds almost like a kind of electronic syd barrett, the crazy unhinged lyrics kind of reminded me of that. Fans of Roxy Music would definitely be at home here, especially if you aren't so keen on the later 'smooth' lounge music Roxy that came after the 'Siren' album. If you longed for Roxy Music to carry on with the 'for your pleasure' style it might be worth checking this out.
The album contains glam tinged pop/rock, but with the strange Eno stamp. 'Mother Whale eyeless' has a superb insistent bass line which sounds somehow very modern for the time. 'Third Uncle' seems to have borrowed it's Bass line from Pink floyd's 'One of these days' but that's no problem. Phil collins is even credited with 'extra drums' on track 4, a sign that Eno's musical family has always been quite a wide one. He has Phil collins play on track 4 and the Portsmouth Sinfonia on track 7!
I never owned this album in its original cd state, so I don't know how much better the sound quality is with this DSD transfer. It certainly sounds very good though and the combination of excellent sound quality and a very contemporary sounding album make this one worth revisting!.

A musician friend played me this album just after it was released. I was a staunch Roxy Music fan and I admit I resisted the charms during my first listening but something got planted in my soul that took root and grew soon after. I went out and bought my own copy and I went on a personal crusade to win my other friends over. For me Taking Tiger Mountain, Another Green World and Here Come the Warm Jets are equally fantastic. Each contain huge doses of pathos, depth and humor. On these 3 albums we find absolute gems, showing a talent for songwriting that Eno never again (much to my disappointment!) allowed to see the light of day. His ventures into ambient music are of course important works but you won't find anything there to move you. His colaborations with Bowie and his fine production work raised the standards of popular music through the 80s and his influence is still very apparent in many indie bands of today.
I lost my vinyl copy of Taking Tiger Mountain many years ago but just seeing the picture of the cover and reading the songlist starts the music playing in my head once again. I'm going to order the CD right now!

If I was sent to the Desert Island with one disc it would be this. I could ramble on for hours about it but it is simply the best record ever made. As Bono said Brian Eno is a national treasure and this is his finest hour.