• Brian Eno – Reflection

    January 24, 2017 - By 

    Brian Eno invented ambient. Did he? Maybe. Who knows? He’s done a lot over the years – insert chronology here, from Roxy Music to Music For Airports, producing Laraaji, teaming up with Bowie and then U2, film soundtracks, Windows 95, and finally releasing albums for Warp. The latter is why we’re talking about him here, as he kicked off 2017 with a beautiful piece of work called Reflection, which was released on January 1. It’s the latest in a series of works in a bracket he calls “thinking music”; works that are “generative”. He takes a series of sounds, sets…

  • Playlist: Hooked On Classics

    September 1, 2015 - By 

    The death of James Last earlier this year highlighted the often strange relationship between “pop” and “serious” music, Diarmuid Kennedy writes. Last’s weird function seems to have been to take easily digestible popular music and make it even blander – the musical equivalent of a chip milkshake.  Mercifully there are other approaches. David Lang’s version of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Heroin’ makes it an even darker, more haunting song.   The Alarm Will Sound ensemble has knocked out a complete album of Aphex Twin arrangements.   The percussionist Joby Burgess’ Powerplant project has taken on some of Kraftwerk’s canon for their…

  • Brian Eno: Ambience For One

    December 8, 2014 - By 

    In a year when much has been written about the return of the Aphex Twin it is easy to forget its been a vintage year for that other studio super boffin, Brian Eno. His excellent collaborations with Karl Hyde, Someday World and High Life were released in May and June respectively. Someday World is an intelligent pop record – full of catchy, intricate melody lines, while High Life with fewer longer tracks sounds more improvisational – some of the best bits sound like out-takes from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. June also saw the release of the expanded version of Jon Hassell’s City: Works of Fiction. Hassell, an American…

  • Lesser Known Pleasures: Brian Eno – Music For Films

    October 9, 2013 - By 

    Lesser Known Pleasures is an overdue hurrah for albums that live in the shadow of an artist’s more renowned or successful work. Great records, that for one reason or another, failed to tear up the charts or wow the critics, yet on further inspection are undeniably damn fine indeed. Lesser Known Pleasures are the albums that demand that the scales of justice be re-calibrated. This time around it’s the turn of Ambient pioneer, Art Pop legend and all round musical genius Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno. But you can call him just plain Eno. The album…