David Bowie”Heroes” (1977) Rykodisc* Times Line(TM): 808-8463....

David Bowie

“Heroes” (1977)

Rykodisc

* Times Line(TM): 808-8463. To hear an excerpt from “Heroes,” call TimesLine and press *5541

“There’s Old Wave, there’s New Wave and there’s David Bowie.” That was the publicity slogan whipped up for “Heroes,” one of the Englishman’s most challenging and esoteric albums.

It wasn’t false advertising. In the ‘70s, the chameleonlike Bowie was the personification of rock’s renegade spirit. From the glittery raunch ‘n’ roll of his “Aladdin Sane” to the Philly soul of his “Young Americans,” the fiercely independent maverick proved willing and very able to change musical styles and personas at the drop of a hat. He didn’t follow trends, he set them.

As a bevy of adventurous punk and new wave bands cropped up around him in the mid-to-late ‘70s, Bowie seemed more determined than ever to take chances. A mesmerizing collection of electronic and ambient music, “Heroes” was the middle album in a trilogy he recorded with Brian Eno in West Berlin. With “Low,” its immediate predecessor, it stands out as his most experimental, least commercial effort.

Its sonic textures are particularly stunning. On the first half of the album, Eno’s churning synthesizer chords, Robert Fripp’s space-electronic guitar melodies and guitarist Carlos Alomar’s hard riffing converge to create a tone that is impressively dense and futuristic. When Bowie’s scathing, almost demonic sounding vocals are added to the mix in the opening cut, “Beauty and the Beast,” the results are both intimidating and wildly invigorating.

Still, the title track is the album’s tour de force. Supported by a wall of dreamy electronic sound, this tale of two lovers who rendezvous at the Berlin Wall is one of Bowie’s most romantic.

The second half of “Heroes” consists mainly of atmospheric in strumental tracks. “V-2 Schneider” is a lighthearted tribute to Florian Schneider of the German electronic pop group Kraftwerk. “Moss Garden” is an entrancing and surreal piece of ambient music featuring Bowie on koto, a beautiful and haunting Japanese stringed instrument. Eno’s influence is most palpable on these instrumental numbers, which for the most part bring the listener some rich rewards.

The CD version of “Heroes” includes two bonus tracks, the instrumental “Abdulmajid” and a re-mix of the album’s “Joe the Lion.”