Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Sound Of Life JANUARY 2, 2025 - by Marco Sebastiano Alessi

THE ILLUSION OF TIME: A VOYAGE INTO THE WORLD OF BRIAN ENO'S GENERATIVE MUSIC

At the end of October, Brian Eno brought to life an immersive sonic experience at Teatro La Fenice in Venice as part of this year's incredible Music Biennale.

For the occasion, the Baltic Sea Philarmonic, directed by Kristjan Järvi, presented Ships, a solo show by Eno that draws inspiration from one of his most recent releases, The Ship by Warp Records in 2016.

This year, the Biennale's lineup showcased some of the finest electronic innovators of our time. From Autechre to Kali Malone, Robert Henke to John Zorn, each and every one of them is a pioneer in their own realm of experimental exploration.

Yet Eno is one of a kind, an artiste who changed, decades ago, the way music is made and perceived.

He paved the way for concepts that we're only now beginning to grasp: the idea of music evolving independently from the human mind, and ever-changing soundscapes that are outside of the control of the composer.

Although he popularised the term only in 1996, the idea of "generative music" defined Eno's career almost from the start, since his 1975 masterpiece album Discreet Music.

The concept behind this approach is simple.

It is about the composer becoming a spectator - observing creations as they evolve unbounded by impulses, bringing to life a soundscape that's unpredictable, constantly changing, and seemingly endless.

Eno's new way of approaching music composition revolutionised the frontier of experimental music, and soon, many ambitious artistes followed suit.

His artistry led to the discovery of a new area of creativity - imbibed in technology, yet haunting and uncompromisingly human in its beauty.

Here, we explore and celebrate Eno's work by highlighting his role in the development of generative music.

THE GENESIS OF GENERATIVE MUSIC

The idea of generative music started with the experimental and avant-garde movements of the mid-20th century that wanted to free musical composition from strictures of traditional forms and techniques.

Before complex algorithms and software became popular, tape loops, reel-to-reel machines and other analogue recording devices were used to create compositions that unfolded according to pre-determined systems or sets of rules.

American composer Steve Reich was among the pioneers in this realm, and perhaps the best example of this early exploration of generative music.

In his early work It's Gonna Rain, we can hear a technique called "phasing", in which identical loops gradually move out of sync with each other.

The piece begins with both tape loops playing in unison, but as they drift apart, they create complex and unpredictable polyrhythms.

The idea was to create music that mirrors the unpredictability of life and nature, creating a metaphor for order and chaos.

Two decades later, Reich applied a similar technique to his masterpiece Different Trains (1988), but here, the composer took it a step further by incorporating recorded speech and string instruments.

The speech recordings, which included snippets from Holocaust survivors, became a melodic template for the string parts, merging and transcending the boundaries between human narrative and artificially altered sounds.

By the mid-1970s and '80s, early computer music languages like Csound and Max allowed more complex rule sets and real-time generation of music, opening up a world of algorithmic composition.

Unbounded by the technological and financial challenges associated with tape loops and reel-to-reel machines, artistes soon began exploring the idea of "automation" in music, which led to fully generative works created through software.

CONTINUOUS JOURNEY

Eno's exploration into generative music is a journey that portrays the evolution of technology and the artiste's vision.

While not fully generative, Eno's 1978 Music For Airports uses tape loops of various lengths to create a non-repetitive, immersive soundscape that revolutionised the way listeners perceived music at the time.

Before this album, what was considered "serious" music demanded focused, active listening, but here, Eno created an immersive soundscape that could either calm the nerves, provoke thought, or simply be ignored.

A sense of endless variation further enhances the beauty of this timeless work of art: a musical experience that could be both static and dynamic, depending on how deeply the listener decides to focus on it.

Thursday Afternoon is a personal favourite of mine and an album that further expands the sonic palette of generative music and highlights how we interact with music today.

Released in 1985, this sixty-minute work combines a carefully crafted ambient tapestry with minimalist piano melodies to create a fluid, ever-changing soundscape.

In Thursday Afternoon, endless loops blend organically, reconfiguring the piece's mood and atmosphere and transforming it into a wholly personal sonic journey.

Neroli (1993) can be considered a follow-up to Thursday Afternoon, with generative structures and algorithmic processes that bring to life a calming, ever-changing ambient soundscape.

The album features a series of tones and drones that are triggered by a computer program, resulting in a non-repetitive yet recognisable pattern that gives a sense of endless variation within a coherent sonic space.

It was only a matter of time before Eno extended his generative ideas into the realm of visual art with 77 Million Paintings. Published in 2006, this software program generated unique audiovisual installations by randomly combining visual and audio elements.

Like his earlier musical works, it was created based on algorithms and would never repeat in the same way, neither visually nor acoustically.

As technology improved, so did Eno's interest in the intersections between creativity and human interaction with technological advancements.

A great example is Scape.

Released in 2012 as an iOS application developed by Eno in collaboration with Peter Chilvers, Scape empowered users to become composers of their own generative pieces, offering a range of visual elements that users could arrange on their device's screen.

These elements would then trigger various musical events, transforming the visual layout into a musical score for a generative composition.

Eno's 2017 release, Reflection, is his twenty-eighth studio album and another great example of what artistes can accomplish by embracing cutting-edge technology and modern listening behaviours.

Reflection is a single, continuous, fifty-four-minute piece of organic ambient music; however, a generative version of the album is available as an app, and that's when things get interesting.

In the app, the way each element (like harmony, tone and timbre) interacts with the others is determined by a set of algorithms, which ensures the piece never plays the same way twice.

The result is a personal, never-ending and ever-changing version of Reflection in real-time.

ENHANCING CREATIVITY

The modern issue with AI-generated music is that it challenges our conventional understanding of composition and human-made art.

Once a system is set into motion, AI systems can produce music independently of human intervention.

So, if an AI algorithm is trained on a vast database of existing musical compositions and generates something new, who is the composer of this piece?

There's no simple answer to such a question, but Eno and those who followed him show us there's a line that connects human creativity and AI, which can be explored and can enhance the beauty of what artistes can bring to life.

Looking back at Eno's discography is the best way to understand how visionary artistes can often see beyond the common concerns and exploit the technology they have at their disposal.

Likewise, we should learn to make the most of the tools we have and create art that resonates with ourselves and others, regardless of the technology we use to create it.