BRIAN ENO

Here's your brain teaser for the day: how do you review an album of music that isn't meant to be actively listened to? Brian Eno's latest (to date) release marks a return to the purity of his ambient roots, presenting 75-minutes of ethereal soundscapes designed to merge at a subliminal level with the environment itself...in other words: music to be deliberately ignored.

The new album revisits ground already broken by Eno years ago, in "Music for Airports", "Thursday Afternoon" and elsewhere: fabricating serene and soothing aural moods from minimal piano notes and atmospheric electronics, assisted here by Leo Abrahams on Moog Guitar (an instrument that resembles the latter but functions like the former), and by Neil Catchpole on violins and viola. The full piece (in twelve sections, according to Eno's website, but good luck finding the separations) was commissioned to play in The Great Gallery of the Palace of Venaria in Turin, Italy, where presumably the architecture itself became an integral part of the experience.

But does it make any sense as a stand-alone CD? Probably, but the results will likely appeal more to fans who thought albums like "Neroli" and "The Shutov Assembly" were too dark and edgy. There are hints of melody throughout, half-heard in a waking dream, and slight differences between each of the four indexed sections, but the variations are so subtle and the changes so gradual that they pass unnoticed, which of course was the aim.

The achievement is hardly unique, but few artists do this sort of thing better than Brian Eno. And while it may do nothing to repair our collective internet-damaged attention span, the calming effect of its slowly unfolding 75 unbroken minutes offers a brief respite from this too wired 21st century.

The answer to the opening brain teaser should have been obvious, by the way. The best way to evaluate an album not meant to be heard is to write a review not meant to be read. Doing otherwise with either one is probably a waste of time, as you've no doubt just discovered.

No progger of note is unaware of Brian Eno. Having written that, I daresay that many of those same proggers of note are naively unaware of the quality of his solo work and the far-reaching impact it has dealt in the realm. I humbly include myself in that dubious affiliation. The list of artists and bands that have benefited from his incalculable talents over the decades is lengthy and includes the likes of Roxy Music, David Bowie, Devo, Talking Heads and U2. Some in the capacity of his generous donation of his musical abilities outright, and some in the sphere of his production and/or technical assistance. In other words, his pedigree is mighty impressive and speaks for itself. However, without the aid of popular hit singles or even a smidgen of FM radio exposure his subtle yet powerful explorations into the aural art of creating ambient soundscapes escaped the notice of most of the civilized world. Like minimalist paintings, the average person doesn't have the patience or time to stop and absorb the intricacies and subconscious appeal owned and projected by his works, thereby missing the beauty they contain altogether. As stated earlier, I am as guilty of overlooking Brian Eno's contributions to progressive trends as anybody else.

The good news (for me, anyway) is that my Eno ignorance came to a halt a few weeks ago when I finally sat down and listened to "Ambient 1: Music for Airports." I had no idea what to expect. Being a lifelong fan of classical music and the calming effect symphonic compositions invariably have on my frame of mind I was hoping for something that might achieve the same tranquilization. What I found was even more soothing than I'd dare desired. I've since read that Brian intended to create sounds and instill moods that could help diffuse tensions and anxieties that seemed to multiply and thrive in environments such as busy airline terminals or train stations and he succeeded brilliantly. If his music can water down that sort of harsh, electric atmosphere of mental stress for the masses imagine what it can do for you following a hectic Monday at your job. While I know that this brand of prog isn't for everyone, I invite you to peek into this separate, frequently overlooked wing of the music building and sample some esoteric wares that will transport your jaded brain neurons to places you never thought possible while stuck in this material dimension. You might catch a glimpse of heaven.

The different pieces have no names to distinguish them, only numbers that indicate where they were to appear on the vinyl LP. "1/1," therefore, is the first cut on side one. On this number (co-written by Eno, Robert Wyatt and Rhett Davies) there is no rhythm track to tap your toes in time to, just beautiful, poignant acoustic piano and synthesizer notes intertwining like effortlessly-rising smoke rings to give one a sensation of floating among the clouds. That expression may be horribly cliché but in this case it is more than appropriate. A profound sense of peace and serenity descends upon the listener as it continues to seep into one's being. Some may get restless with the pace but this music is far from boring if one pays attention to the soft aural hues Brian and Robert apply to the piece like deft paint strokes, demonstrating dramatically that works categorized in the genre of prog don't have to be complex to enthrall. "2/1" utilizes vocals from Christa Fast, Christine Gomez and Inge Zeininger to haunt about Eno's synthesizer. The synth-generated orchestral string section is prominent, giving the notes a liquid quality as if you were swimming just below the surface of a still pond. The vocal timbres lend human warmth to the soundscape that is difficult to describe in words but they add a cathedral texture, a meditative aspect if you will, to the track that is sublime.

"1/2" marks the return of the acoustic piano to the album but this time with more of an orchestral overlay. I especially love how Brian leaves open spaces in his melodic phrases, allowing the piano's ethereal sustain to decay naturally. The female voices are mesmerizing. There is a light mist of pathos enveloping this composition and its tender performance that conveys a deeply-imbedded loneliness as well as any my ears have ever witnessed. Ironically, it is luxurious to bathe your soul in at the same time. "2/2" features a muted horn simulation that grants this piece a glow of royalty and elegance rarely encountered. It reminds me of how maestro Aaron Copland could delicately layer notes upon each other to create delicious chords made up of different instrumentation. There's an other-worldly skill involved in erecting this kind of bottomless yet compassionate music and Eno is obviously one of those geniuses that has the tenacity and forbearance to bring it into being with grace and class. This is a gorgeous album possessing an angelic personality.

Released in 1978, "Ambient 1: Music for Airports" was the first of four in his "ambient" series and I hope to collect more of that quartet of albums in the future. Not everybody will cotton to Brian's minimalist approach to writing and more than a few will find it all a bit tedious after only a few moments but if you'll invest about 40 minutes of your time to inhale all of the incredibly pure, crystal clear oxygen that is contained on this disc I feel certain that you will emerge in a better, more contemplative mindset. You won't regret it. 4.6 stars.

Another Day On Earth is Brian Eno's stab at creating another album of short songs with vocals in the vein of his early solo albums (from Here Come the Warm Jets to Before and After Science). Whilst he brings all the lessons of his three-decade career (not to mention years of technical advancements) to bear on the album, I still don't think it quite measures up to his early efforts; whereas those albums were based on a broad range of musical influences synthesised into an entirely novel and unique whole, here Eno is taking the ambient toolkit and just making more ambient music like he has for the last few decades, only he's putting words to it this time. It's an album which follows a tradition as opposed to breaking new ground, and that's why it can't ever compare to classics like Another Green World.

Brian Eno had in fact collaborated with J. Peter Schwalm before on a piece which only had a very limited release in Japan, but Drawn From Life is the collaboration people are most likely to be able to acquire. Between Eno's always deft production and compositions and the chillout, trance and trip-hop elements contributed by Schwalm, the duo deftly update the atmosphere and approach of Eno's classic ambient works for the 21st Century. Guest appearances from Holger Czukay and Laurie Anderson add an art rock counterpoint to Schwalm's electronic dance music influences, creating an album which draws on an extremely broad range of musical traditions and synthesises them into something entirely new.

Ambient with a twist

As you may expect from the title this is one of Eno's early instrumental works, made for a special purpose, in this case, films. Some track have made it into films as intended, but this have also become one of the pioneering album, in what was to become a genre "ambient music".

The album still differs quite a bit from what we normaly find in "ambient", with many different instruments besides the Keys, and a lot of small relatively unrelated pieces. In contrast to most "ambient" albums, where you find 10 min+ pieces, often restricted to a very uniform sound pallet.

Personally I find this to be both good and bad. The negative effect is that im allways sitting with a feeling, that this album does not come together as a unit well. Especialy in the last 15 minutes, starting with Eno/Jones's "Patrolling Wire Borders" some tracks fall out of context. Leaving me with the feeling, they would fit better on another album.

The good thing about it is that on a track level there are some very interesting contributions from the prominent artists that participate on the tracks, Cale, Fripp, Collins,Jones ect., in general working very well together with the minimalistic patterns that Eno lays out. Another positive side may be that if you don't like "ambient" too much, this is more varied that you might expect.

This is another 70's ENO milestone, that I do not want to live without. An album that I have come to love, almost as much as his vocal 70's albums. Essential within its genre, due to its place in history, the music itself interesting, but not the most important Eno album.

On his latest (to date) album the tireless Brian Eno continues to flex an inquisitive ear toward breaking trends in technology and music, as always staying one step ahead of expectations. You can trace a web of links to other likeminded musical trailblazers: Laurie Anderson; Björk; Thom Yorke of Radiohead (to name just a few of the more familiar techno- geeks), but Eno the ambient godfather isn't ready to pass his torch to the next generation just yet.

A word of caution, however. To best appreciate his latest effort you might need to develop a palate for spoken word poetry. The album takes the opaque narratives of writer Rick Holland and places them against a backdrop of quintessential Eno soundscapes: lush synthetic keyboards; critical beats; ambience up the wazoo, and so forth.

Some of the selections (almost) resemble actual songs ("Bless This Space"; "Cloud 4"; "Dow"), suggesting a post-modern update of the same quirky, off-kilter spirit that animated Eno's earliest solo albums back in the 1970s. But for the new millennium he's developed a form of pop music as it might have been imagined (and sung) by Stanley Kubrick's HAL 9000 computer: as much programmed as it is performed, and truly progressive in the way it forces the listener to rethink basic notions about the nature of songwriting (...Brian...I'm afraid...My mind is going...)

And that's just on the more accessible tracks. Most of the album is more like a truly inscrutable poetry reading set to music: the 21st century equivalent of a Beatnik Happening, and often obscure enough to befuddle even a kindred artiste like David Sylvian. At least one example has a title longer than the track itself ("As If Your Eyes Were Partly Closed As If You Honed the Swirl Within Them and Offered Me the World"); another, simply called "Silence", is exactly that: 58 seconds of dead air, given its own index on the CD track list.

It may sound more than a bit arty and esoteric today. But, for better or worse, this is a (hopefully) higher caliber preview of what popular music will be evolving toward over the next fifty years: fractured, antiseptic, autotuned to ubiquitous excess, and every track brief enough to accommodate our computer-damaged attention spans. No one ever accused Brian Eno of not thinking forward.

[Consumer postscript: some versions of the album include a second disc of the same music, minus the poetry. I can see how more cautious fans might prefer the instrumental disc, but odd as it may seem the album probably works better as originally intended, words (I almost wrote 'warts') and all...otherwise it's just a three-star extension of Eno's ongoing cycle of Music for Films.]

4.5, really.

Is "This is freaking awesome" going to cut it? If not, then what is it used for? This album! Enjoy Eno's pleasures of various discoveries in the world of off-the-wall pop-rock and punk(-rock). This is where Eno's lengthy string of weird pop and rock solo tunes really starts. There is not a single sucker all over the record, except for, probably, 'Some of Them are Old', which sounds just silly without having a serious value. However, I really like the piano note pitch changes, if that's what those are. If you asked me what my personal favorite on this whole record is, then I would say "Well, we are talking apples and oranges here. If it is pop, then 'On Some Faraway Beach' is the one. If it is rock, then it has to be 'Blank Frank'." I really like that guitar refrain on the latter, supplied by Eno's good friend Robert Fripp of lots-of-us-know-whom. To me, this track just sounds like a gene from the lifeblood of rock-n'-roll. I really like the guitar tone and the bizarre chord progression in that refrain. In general, the record is very consistent, big thanks to Robert Fripp and Phil Manzanera taking turns on the guitar.

Rating/comments (if you have to ask):

1. 'Needles in the Camel's Eye' - ****

2. 'Paw Paw N@#$o Blowtorch' - **** (Yes, I'm very serious about the title, no matter what the intentions of the author were, even if there weren't any. Oh, go ahead and beat the drummer Simon King in playing for this track, because this is some adequate drum work.)

3. 'Baby's on Fire' - **** (I think I've heard better guitar solos, but, of course, some of you will think I'm wrong on this one.)

4. 'Cindy Tells Me' - ****

5. 'Driving Me Backwards' - ****

6. 'On Some Faraway Beach' - ***** (It actually sounds like a very serious pop song to me.)

7. 'Blank Frank' - ***** (No pressure. Listen to the music on your own terms or you will probably never get it.)

8. 'Dead Finks Don't Talk' - **** (I would have given it a five for the coda, but I'm going to need more than that from the song.)

9. 'Some of Them are Old' - ***

10. 'Here Come the Warm Jets' - ***** (I don't care about the inappropriate connotations. I never saw it that way and never will.)

Stamp: "I like it." Get this album if you are an avant-rock fun-loving weirdo.

Well, this one is very weird. It is somewhere between truly accessible pop and the music of Faust. It is this amazing blend of the "weird" and "accessible" that got me into this puppy. Eno's vocal is truly unique and bizarre, so bizarre that it may even sound funny and unsuitable for pop music, yet I instantly got the hang of the "funny". He is kind of like Talking Heads' David Byrne in that respect, and if you like the quirky pop sensibilities of Byrne, you will probably like "Taking Tiger Mountain". Actually, it does look like stuff such as "More Songs About Buildings and Food" was a reflection of this record, considering the fact that Eno produced "More Songs", "Fear of Music", and "Remain in Light". The Heads' second album sounds like it's partly about that (for the lack of a better word) "quacking" guitar sound. (No, I don't think "twangy" is the word, although I may be wrong.) Breaking news: so is "Taking Tiger Mountain". The China theme and the eccentricity of the presence of certain sounds like whistling and synth loops give the album an even more unique, interesting edge.

Here is the deal: if you don't like this record, then you won't be missing a whole freaking lot, but you will definitely be missing something unless your brain is really immune to this kind of stuff. Prog or not, I think the album is really cool. I personally don't see anything here that looks like a cost of being different and innovative.

On a relevant side note: I really want to sing 'The True Wheel' in this review, but I won't.

Ratings/comments (if you have to ask:)

1. 'Burning Airlines Give You So Much More' - **** (This is catchy and weird enough for a good opener.)

2. 'Back in Judy's Jungle' - ****

3. 'The Fat Lady of Limbourg' - ***

4. 'Mother Whale Eyeless' - ****

5. 'The Great Pretender' - ***

6. 'Third Uncle' - **** (Start with this one.)

7. 'Put a Straw Under Baby' - ****

8. 'The True Wheel' - ****

9. 'China My China' - ****

10. 'Taking Tiger Mountain' - ***** (Eno is finally seriously considering ambient in his poppy stuff. Cool, hypnotic, a little sugar-sweet.)

Stamp: "I like it."

4.5, maximum. It's as high as I can go, really.

If you want ambient and pop well-blended together, then there you have it. This maybe a tougher album to get into since the elements of pop tend to get in the way for my aura to absorb the essence of the ambient side of this record. Nonetheless, this is a really good piece of work, and it is quite likely that you won't be wasting your time listening to it if you give it enough attention. My personal biggest favorite is 'Here He Comes', where those synths are really penetrating my mind once again (after having a delightful experience with "Another Green World".) But it is not all ambient pop throughout the album; some of the songs here are just catchy, quirky, and happy, which provides the album with some contrast. That's good.

On a side note: has it not been for the title of the fourth track, I would have given that track a single star. Given its title, it is funny musico-conceptually. "Now you see the rabbit, now you don't." But then the magic for some reason fails the guy ? the bunny doesn't show up again, so now he just looks embarrassing. Then his head disappears because he stuck his head into it. Bottom line is: let you imagination do the trick here. This is more than just some lousy soundtrack.

Ratings/comments (if you have to ask):

1. 'No One Receiving' - ****

2. 'Backwater' - ****

3. 'Kurt's Rejoinder' - **

4. 'Energy Fools the Magician' - ***

5. 'King's Lead Hat' - ***** (I like the guitar tone here better than the guitar tone on The Ramones' debut, believe it or not.)

6. 'Here He Comes' - *****

7. 'Julie With' - *****

8. 'By This River' - *****

9. 'Through Hollow Lands' - ****

10. 'Spider and I' - ***** ("We sleep in the mornings. We dream of a ship that sails away. A thousand miles away." Who else could think of such music?)

Stamp: "I like it."

"Wait a second, I don't get it. If you have quite a number of five-star tracks on this album, why did you give it a four or a four and a half?" The answer is: the effect of this album on me was short-living. It's a relationship that didn't last long because it just stopped working. It just needs a lot of focus on the emotional depth of some of the songs here. But, please, don't be discouraged from listening to this work. Critics love it, and, even though that doesn't mean that you have to like it, why don't you just give it a/another shot if you don't like it?

Oh, yes, I remember listening to this one in its entirety. Considering the fact that this album has only four tracks that are very repetitive, I can't really say much about it. What I can say is that I find it extremely difficult to listen to the half-hour-long title track in one sitting or standing or walking. There is nothing obvious about it except for the melodies. It does not incite any kind of mood in my head. This is such a shallow torture.

However, when it comes to the second side of the album, things get very interesting. Eno takes on the legendary Canon in D major by Johannes Pachelbel in three turns with slightly different results. The first variation is my personal favorite, driven with a dense and rich orchestral sound that can be pretty moving but definitely touching. The second variation is also very decent. The instruments sound very good, which signifies the outstanding quality of the production job done by Brian. It also gives away the idea that Eno has an ear for good classical melodies. The third and last variation on the canon certainly overstays its welcome, but it also sounds decent. Why? I can still become enamored with the sound of the strings. Also, the harmonic progressions sound odd but my brain doesn't mind it. This is not a very cognitive kind of music. Its focus seems to be the quality of texture, not normal melodies or normal chord progressions. Now, even though these last three tracks on the record are a bit too long for me, I can simply put up with that, but not without the thought "OK, wrap it up". Also, I don't really mind it if they don't sound quite like the canon itself.

Overall, this album is a bit difficult to rate when I know that the first track can mentally hurt me a little bit, if not kill me. However, I have to acknowledge the power of the arrangements of the canon, and I want to do that. "Discreet Music" is not essential to prog rock, but it is good regardless.

Stamp: "I like it."