Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Long Live Vinyl JUNE 2018 - by Owen Bailey

BRIAN ENO: MUSIC FOR INSTALLATIONS

Eno's latest offering is a monster nine-LP box-set of new, rare or unreleased pieces of music drawing from his work for physical art installations. Stretching back to 1986, his work has been exhibited at various venues, from the Venice Biennale to the Sydney Opera House. It's all new to vinyl, too. The entirely instrumental music, divorced from its original context, largely resists explanation; but most of it is made up of immersive painterly soundscapes, interspersed with more kinetic pieces. Eno's entire repertoire of sonic trickery is here - from the chimes, reverb-drenched piano and lava-lamp ambience of the opening pieces, through to the unsettling 77 Million Paintings: this forty-four-minute-long track feels like an undersea realm where bizarre, undiscovered musical species - fragments of robot voices, distant bass notes and hollowed-out chimes - drift past your listening position. The overall effect is narcotic, otherworldly and destabilising, but oddly beautiful - and about as meditative and immersive as music gets.