Here Come The Warm Jets - Production

Production

Here Come the Warm Jets was recorded in twelve days at Majestic Studios in London during September 1973 by recording engineer Derek Chandler. It was mixed at Air and Olympic Studios by Eno and audio engineer Chris Thomas. The album's title was originally described by Eno as a slang term for urination. However, in an interview with Mojo magazine in 1996, Eno explained that it came from a description he wrote for the treated guitar on the title track; he called it "warm jet guitar...because the guitar sounded like a tuned jet."

Eno enlisted sixteen guest musicians to play on the album with him, including John Wetton and Robert Fripp of King Crimson, Simon King from Hawkwind, Bill MacCormick of Matching Mole, Paul Rudolph of Pink Fairies, Chris Spedding and all the members of Roxy Music except vocalist Bryan Ferry. Eno selected them on the basis that he thought they were incompatible with each other musically. He stated that he "got them together merely because I wanted to see what happens when you combine different identities like that and allow them to compete.... is organized with the knowledge that there might be accidents, accidents which will be more interesting than what I had intended".

Eno directed the musicians by using body language and dancing, as well as through verbal suggestion, to influence their playing and the sounds they would emit. He felt at the time that this was a good way to communicate with musicians. The album credits Eno with instruments such as "snake guitar", "simplistic piano" and "electric larynx". These terms were used to describe the sound's character or the means of production used to treat the instruments. After recording the individual tracks, Eno condensed and mixed the instrumentation deeply, resulting in some of the tracks bearing little resemblance to what the musicians recorded during the session.