The Man of Many Talents

This post is inspired by the many people asking me about this man.

One of the most influential people in the music industry ... Ambient pioneer, glam rocker, hit producer, multimedia artist, technological innovator, worldbeat proponent, and self-described non-musician, a man who wears many hats with elan, Brian Eno has seen many phases in his life.

Rising to fame with the garish glam rock band, Roxy Music, which he left after conflict with Bryan Ferry, the frontman. Then he began his long journey into electronica beginning with the Frippertronic system, a tape delay system for Robert Fripp, of the seminal prog. rock band King Crimson. Here Come the Warm Jets, with some guesting by Fripp was his first solo effort. I recommend Baby's on Fire for the Fripp guitar solo.

Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) was the next, a freeform collection of abstract pop. The most significant turn in his life occured in 1975 when he was hospitalised after a car accident. As the liner notes on Discreet Music (1975) say:

In January this year I had an accident. I was not seriously hurt, but I was confined to bed in a stiff and static position. My friend Judy Nylon visited me and brought me a record of 18th century harp music. After she had gone, and with some considerable difficulty, I put on the record. Having laid down, I realized that the amplifier was set at an extremely low level, and that one channel of the stereo had failed completely. Since I hadn't the energy to get up and improve matters, the record played on almost inaudibly. This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music - as part of the ambience of the environment just as the colour of the light and the sound of the rain were parts of that ambience.

And thus was born ambient music.

This is what he says on the notes to Music for Airports / Ambient 1

An ambience is defined as an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint. My intention is to produce original pieces ostensibly (but not exclusively) for particular times and situations with a view to building up a small but versatile catalogue of environmental music suited to a wide variety of moods and atmospheres.
Whereas the extant canned music companies proceed from the basis of regularizing environments by blanketing their acoustic and atmospheric idiosyncracies, Ambient Music is intended to enhance these. Whereas conventional background music is produced by stripping away all sense of doubt and uncertainty (and thus all genuine interest) from the music, Ambient Music retains these qualities. And whereas their intention is to `brighten' the environment by adding stimulus to it (thus supposedly alleviating the tedium of routine tasks and levelling out the natural ups and downs of the body rhythms) Ambient Music is intended to induce calm and a space to think.
Ambient Music must be able to accomodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

Discreet Music was the first in the series of a ten volume work in similar experimental music. The above mentioned 1978's Music for Airports was a record designed to calm air passengers against fears of flying and the threat of crashes.

Then he reinvented hinself as a successful producer working on David Bowie's landmark trilogy, Low, Heroes and Lodger. Then came the Talking Heads with whom he worked on African Polyrhythms which peaked with 1980's Remain in Light. Teaming up with Daniel Lanois producing the super successful albums, among others, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby for U2.

In 1983 came Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks, a collection of space-themed work, which included the song Deep Blue Day, which also appeared on the soundtrack of the cult hit
Trainspotting. I recommend that song and another, Weightless from this album.

In 1990, Eno collaborated with John Cale on Wrong Way Up where he also featured on vocals. Several solo efforts followed: The Shutov Assembly (1992), Nerve Net (1992), Neroli (1993) and Glitterbug (1994).

Eno also frequently ventured into other realms of media, beginning in 1980 with the vertical-format video Mistaken Memories of Medieval Manhattan; along with designing a 1989 art installation to help inaugurate a Shinto shrine in Japan and 1995's Self-Storage, a multimedia work created with Laurie Anderson, he also published a diary, 1996's A Year with Swollen Appendices, and formulated Generative Music I, a series of audio screen savers for home computer software. In August of 1999, Sonora Portraits, a collection of Eno's previous ambient tracks and a 93-page companion booklet, was published. Around 1998, Eno was working heavily in the world of art installations and a series of his installation soundtracks started to appear, most in extremely limited editions (making them instant collectors items). In 2000 he teamed with German DJ Jan Peter Schwalm for the Japanese-only release Music for Onmyo-Ji.

His last release was in 2005 with Another Day on Earth, with Eno vocals after 15 years. This
is more of ambient music album, with elements of pop/electronica notably in the tracks This, Just Another Day, Under and Bone Bomb. A good listen. Recommended tracks: And Then So Clear, This, Bottomliners.

Currently listening to Another Day on Earth. Had to be inspired