Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Q JANUARY 2019 - by Simon McEwen

BRIAN ENO: DISCREET MUSIC / MUSIC FOR FILMS / MUSIC FOR AIRPORTS / ON LAND

Polymath's pioneering ambient work remastered.

The idea behind ambient came to the ex-Roxy Music keyboardist while laid up in hospital listening to eighteenth-century harp music on low volume and the rainfall outside. Eno applied the same minimalist sound aesthetic to these four landmark "generative" compositions, from 1975-'82, utilising synths and tape delay to evoke what he calls a "waking calmness" in the listener. This is music as emollient - hypnotic and meditative, and, forty years on, still utterly original.