Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK
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Rip It Up OCTOBER 1986 - by Terence Hogan

MORE DARK THAN SHARK BY ENO & MILLS, WITH COMMENTARIES BY RICK POYNER

More Dark Than Shark is essentially a collection of interpretations by illustrator Russell Mills of the songs of his friend Brian Eno. These are supplemented by statements, quotes and commentaries on their working methods and motives by both Eno and Mills, and a handful of longer pieces by Eno's biographer Rick Poynor.

At first I suspected something slightly askew at the very heart of this intriguing and unusual work. I doubted its premise that Eno's entirely novel and, at its best, quite magical alloy of intellect and pop could be crystallised graphically to produce results as similarly affecting as the music itself.

Eno's first few post-Roxy albums were a revelation to me personally (the later and ambient music I respect but feel little compulsion towards), and I was half expecting this lavish book to be an opportunistic and unconvincing conceit, but not so. More Dark Than Shark is a fascinating exercise, imaginatively carried out. Mills' contention that his illustration for Tzima N'arki is "probably the least reverential to the song of the whole set but, partly for this reason, one of the most successful," points to the impetus his work has to work at a tangent to the music rather than lean on it.

And so a growing sense of this book's own validity has largely dispelled my misgivings. If it sounds at all interesting to you, the chances are that you will find it a real treat. The accompanying text is enlightening, the design by Malcolm Garret appropriately eccentric, and the printing superb.


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