'We were on a roll' replied Karl Hyde dryly when a journalist from The Guardian asked him how this album was released so soon after its predecessor. Just count, barely three months after their first collaboration album Someday World (2014), Brian Eno and Karl Hyde are already eager for the follow-up. Are they songs that weren't good enough for part 1? Certainly not, the duo was just looking forward
… to it. Compared to Someday World, High Life sounds a bit more bare and rhythmic. The duo was inspired by minimalists such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass, but the influence of Fela Kuti, the Nigerian inventor of the afrobeat, is most evident. The afrobeat of Eno & Hyde, both middle-aged British gentlemen, is a lot more electronic and yes, more thoughtful, than that of Fela. Highlights are the jazzy afrofunk stamper DBF and the ten-minute groove monster Lilac that sounds like a Philip Glass jam with Franz Ferdinand. Let these two veterans roll on. Who knows what will be ready again in three months. (PdK)more
