| Brian Eno |
Eno at The Long Now Foundation, 26 June 2006 |
| Background information |
| Birth name |
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno |
| Born |
(1948-05-15) 15 May 1948 (age 64)
Woodbridge, Suffolk, England |
| Genres |
Experimental rock, ambient, minimalism, electronic, art rock, glam rock |
| Occupations |
Producer, musician, songwriter, artist |
| Instruments |
Synthesiser, piano, keyboards, vocals, organ, saxophone, guitar, bass |
| Years active |
1970–present |
| Labels |
Island, Polydor, EG, Obscure, Opal, Virgin, Astralwerks, All Saints Records, Rykodisc |
| Associated acts |
Roxy Music, David Bowie, Coldplay, Talking Heads, Robert Fripp, Cluster, Devo, U2, David Byrne, Robert Wyatt, 801 |
| Website |
brian-eno.net
|
| Music sample |
|
|
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno[1] (born 15 May 1948), commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno (
/ˈiːnoʊ/[citation needed]), is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer, and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.[2]
Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex, England, taking inspiration from minimalist painting. During his time on the art course at the Institute, he also gained experience in playing and making music through teaching sessions held in the adjacent music school.
He joined the band Roxy Music as keyboard and synthesiser player in the early 1970s. Roxy Music's success in the glam rock scene came quickly, but Eno soon tired of touring and of conflicts with lead singer Bryan Ferry.
Eno's solo music has explored more experimental musical styles and ambient music. It has also been extremely influential, pioneering ambient and generative music, innovating production techniques, and emphasising "theory over practice".[3] He also introduced the concept of chance music to popular audiences, partially through collaborations with other musicians.[4]
Eno has also worked as an influential music and album producer. By the end of the 1970s, Eno had worked with David Bowie on the seminal "Berlin Trilogy" and helped popularise the American band Devo and the punk-influenced "No Wave" genre. He produced and performed on three albums by Talking Heads, including Remain in Light (1980), and produced seven albums for U2, including The Joshua Tree (1987). Eno has also worked on records by James, Laurie Anderson, Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Paul Simon, Grace Jones and Slowdive, among others.
Eno pursues multimedia ventures in parallel to his music career, including art installations, a newspaper column in The Observer, a regular column on society and innovation in Prospect magazine, and "Oblique Strategies" (written with Peter Schmidt), a deck of cards in with cryptic remarks or random insights meant to resolve dilemmas. He continues to collaborate with other musicians, produce records, release his own music, and write.
Brian Eno was born in 1948 at Phyllis Memorial Hospital, Woodbridge, Suffolk, and was educated at St Joseph's College, Birkfield, Ipswich, which was founded by the St John le Baptiste de la Salle order of Catholic brothers (from whom he took part of his name), at Ipswich Art School in Roy Ascott's Groundcourse and the Winchester School of Art, graduating in 1969. In school, he used a tape recorder as a musical instrument and experimented with his first, sometimes improvisational, bands. St. Joseph's College teacher and painter Tom Phillips encouraged him, recalling "Piano Tennis" with Eno, in which, after collecting pianos, they stripped and aligned them in a hall, striking them with tennis balls. From that collaboration, he became involved in Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra. The first released recording in which Eno played is the Deutsche Grammophon edition of Cardew's The Great Learning (rec. Feb. 1971), as one of the voices in the recital of The Great Learning Paragraph 7. Another early recording was the Berlin Horse soundtrack, by Malcom Le Grice, a nine-minute, 2 × 16 mm-double-projection, released in 1970 and presented in 1971.[5]
Brian Eno's professional music career began in London, as a member (1971–1973) of the glam/art rock band Roxy Music, initially not appearing on stage with them at live shows, but operating the mixing desk, processing the band's sound with a VCS3 synthesiser and tape recorders, and singing backing vocals. He then progressed to appearing on stage as a performing member of the group, usually flamboyantly costumed. He quit the band on completing the promotion tour for the band's second album, For Your Pleasure because of disagreements with lead singer Bryan Ferry and boredom with the rock star life.[6]
In 1992, he described his Roxy Music tenure as important to his career: "As a result of going into a subway station and meeting Andy [saxophonist Andy Mackay], I joined Roxy Music, and, as a result of that, I have a career in music. If I'd walked ten yards further on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now".[7] During his period with Roxy Music, and for his first three solo albums, he was credited on these records only as 'Eno'.
Eno embarked on a solo career almost immediately. Between 1973 and 1977 he created four albums of largely electronically inflected pop songs – Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World and Before and after Science, though the latter two also contained a number of minimal instrumental pieces in the so-called ambient style. Tiger Mountain contains the galloping "Third Uncle", one of Eno's best-known songs, owing in part to its later being covered by Bauhaus. Critic Dave Thompson writes that the song is "a near punk attack of riffing guitars and clattering percussion, 'Third Uncle' could, in other hands, be a heavy metal anthem, albeit one whose lyrical content would tongue-tie the most slavish air guitarist."[8]
These four albums were remastered and reissued in 2004 by Virgin's Astralwerks label. Due to Eno's decision not to add any extra tracks of the original material, a handful of tracks originally issued as singles have not been reissued ("Seven Deadly Finns" and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" were included on the deleted Eno Vocal Box set and the single mix of "King's Lead Hat" [which is an anagram of "Talking Heads"] has never been reissued).
During this period, Eno also played three dates with Phil Manzanera in the band 801, a "supergroup" that performed more or less mutated selections from albums by Eno, Manzanera, and Quiet Sun, as well as covers of songs by The Beatles and The Kinks.
In 1972, Eno developed a tape-delay system first utilised by Eno and Robert Fripp (from King Crimson), described as 'Frippertronics', and the pair released an album in 1973 called (No Pussyfooting). It is said the technique was borrowed from minimalist composer Terry Riley, whose tape delay feedback system with a pair of Revox tape recorders (a setup Riley used to call the "Time Lag Accumulator") was first used on Riley's album Music for The Gift in 1963.[9] In 1975, Fripp and Eno released a second album, Evening Star, and played several live shows in Europe.
Eno's new methods of making sound into music called for new ways of notating his compositions. Like some 20th-century composers of "classical" music, he used graphic notation to represent what could not possibly be conveyed by conventional notes on a staff.[citation needed]
Eno was a prominent member of the performance art-classical orchestra the Portsmouth Sinfonia – having started playing with them in 1972. In 1973 he produced the orchestra's first album The Portsmouth Sinfonia Plays the Popular Classics (released in March 1974) and in 1974 he produced the live album Hallellujah! The Portsmouth Sinfonia Live At The Royal Albert Hall of their infamous May 1974 concert (released in October 1974.) In addition to producing both albums, Eno performed in the orchestra on both recordings – playing the clarinet. Eno also deployed the orchestra's famously dissonant string section on his second solo album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). The orchestra at this time included other musicians whose solo work he would subsequently release on his Obscure label including Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman. That year he also composed music for the album Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy, with Kevin Ayers, to accompany the poet June Campbell Cramer.
Eno continued his career by producing a larger number of highly eclectic and increasingly ambient electronic and acoustic albums. He is widely credited with coining the term "ambient music",[10] low-volume music designed to modify one's perception of a surrounding environment.
His first such work, 1975's Discreet Music (again created via an elaborate tape-delay methodology, which Eno diagrammed on the back cover of the LP ), is considered the landmark album of the genre. This was followed by his Ambient series (Music for Airports (Ambient 1), The Plateaux of Mirror (Ambient 2), Day of Radiance (Ambient 3) and On Land (Ambient 4)). Eno was the primary musician on these releases with the exception of Ambient 2 which featured Harold Budd on keyboard, and Ambient 3 where the American composer Laraaji was the sole musician playing the zither and hammered dulcimer with Eno producing.
In 1980 Eno provided a film score for Herbert Vesely's Egon Schiele Exzess und Bestrafung, also known as Egon Schiele Excess and Punishment. The ambient-style score was an unusual choice for a historical piece, but it worked effectively with the film's themes of sexual obsession and death.
In 1981, having returned from Ghana and before On Land, he discovered Miles Davis' 1974 track "He Loved Him Madly", a melancholy tribute to Duke Ellington influenced by both African music and Karlheinz Stockhausen: as Eno stated in the liner notes for On Land, "Teo Macero's revolutionary production on that piece seemed to me to have the "spacious" quality I was after, and like Federico Fellini's 1973 film Amarcord, it too became a touchstone to which I returned frequently."[11]
Eno describes himself as a "non-musician" and coined the term "treatments" to describe his modification of the sound of musical instruments, and to separate his role from that of the traditional instrumentalist. His skill at using "The Studio as a Compositional Tool"[12] (the title of an essay by Eno) led in part to his career as a producer. His methods were recognised at the time (mid-1970s) as unique, so much so that on Genesis's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, he is credited with 'Enossification'; on Robert Wyatt's Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard with a Direct inject anti-jazz raygun and on John Cale's Island albums as simply being "Eno".
Eno started the Obscure Records label in Britain in 1975 to release works by lesser-known composers. The first group of three releases included his own composition, Discreet Music, and the now-famous The Sinking of the Titanic (1969) and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971) by Gavin Bryars. The second side of Discreet Music consisted of several versions of Pachelbel's Canon, the composition which Eno had previously chosen to precede Roxy Music's appearances on stage, to which various algorithmic transformations have been applied, rendering it almost unrecognisable. Side 1 consisted of a tape loop system for generating music from relatively sparse input. These tapes had previously been used as backgrounds in some of his collaborations with Fripp, most notably on Evening Star. Only 10 albums were released on Obscure, including works by John Adams, Michael Nyman, and John Cage. At this time he was also affiliating with artists in the Fluxus movement.
In 1975 Eno performed as the Wolf in a rock version of Sergei Prokofiev's classic Peter and The Wolf. Produced by Robin Lumley and Jack Lancaster, the album featured Gary Moore, Manfred Mann, Phil Collins, Stephane Grapelli, Chris Spedding, Cozy Powell, Jon Hiseman, Bill Bruford and Alvin Lee. Also in 1975, Eno provided synthesisers and treatments on Quiet Sun's Mainstream album alongside Phil Manzanera, Charles Hayward, Dave Jarrett, and Bill MacCormick, and he performed on and contributed songs and vocals to Phil Manzanera's Diamond Head album.
In 1980–1981, Eno collaborated with David Byrne of Talking Heads (which he had already anagrammatised as 'King's Lead Hat') on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which was built around radio broadcasts Eno collected while living in the United States, along with sampling recordings from around the world transposed over music predominately inspired by African and Middle Eastern rhythms.
He worked with David Bowie as a writer and musician on Bowie's influential 1977–79 'Berlin Trilogy' of albums, Low, "Heroes" and Lodger, on Bowie's later album Outside, and on the song "I'm Afraid of Americans". In 1980 Eno developed an interest in altered guitar tunings, which led to Guitarchitecture discussions with Chuck Hammer, former Lou Reed guitarist. Following on from his No-Wave involvement which brought him in contact with the "renegade" artist Greg Belcastro, who introduced him to the guitar techniques of a fledgling Sonic Youth, Eno has also collaborated with John Cale, former member of Velvet Underground, on his trilogy Fear, Slow Dazzle and Helen of Troy, Robert Wyatt on his Shleep CD, with Jon Hassell, with the German duo Cluster, with composers Harold Budd, Philip Glass and Roberto Carnevale. A new collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno titled Everything That Happens Will Happen Today was released digitally on 18 August 2008, with the enhanced CD released in October.
In 1992, Eno released an album featuring heavily syncopated rhythms entitled Nerve Net, with contributions from several former collaborators including Robert Fripp, Benmont Tench, Robert Quine and John Paul Jones. This album was a last-minute substitution for My Squelchy Life, which featured more pop oriented material, with Eno on vocals. (Several tracks from My Squelchy Life later appeared on 1993's retrospective box set Eno Box II: Vocals.) Eno also released in 1992 a work entitled The Shutov Assembly, recorded between 1985 and 1990. This album embraces atonality and abandons most conventional concepts of modes, scales and pitch. Much of the music shifts gradually and without discernible focus, and is one of Eno's most varied ambient collections. Conventional instrumentation is eschewed, save for treated keyboards.
During the 1990s, Eno became increasingly interested in self-generating musical systems, the results of which he called generative music. The basic premise of generative music is the blending of several independent musical tracks, of varying sounds, length, and in some cases, silence. When each individual track concludes, it starts again mixing with the other tracks allowing the listener to hear an almost infinite combination. In one instance of generative music, Eno calculated that it would take almost 10,000 years to hear the entire possibilities of one individual piece. Eno has presented this music in his own, and other artists', art and sound installations, most notably "I Dormienti (The Sleepers)", Lightness: Music for the Marble Palace, Music for Civic Recovery Centre, The Quiet Room and "Music for Prague".
In 2004, Fripp and Eno recorded another ambient collaboration album, The Equatorial Stars.
Eno returned in June 2005 with Another Day on Earth, his first major album since Wrong Way Up (with John Cale) to prominently feature vocals (a trend continued with Everything That Happens Will Happen Today). The album differs from his 1970s solo work as musical production has changed since then, evident in its semi-electronic production.
In early 2006, Eno collaborated with David Byrne, again, for the reissue of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in celebration of the influential album's 25th anniversary. Eight previously unreleased tracks, recorded during the initial sessions in 1980/81, were added to the album, while one track, "Qu'ran", was removed in accordance with requests from Muslims.[13] An unusual interactive marketing strategy coincided with its re-release, the album’s promotional website features the ability for anyone to officially and legally download the multi-tracks of two songs from the album, "A Secret Life" and "Help Me Somebody". Individuals can then remix and upload new mixes of these tracks to the website so others can listen to and rate them.
In late 2006, Eno released 77 Million Paintings, a program of generative video and music specifically for the PC. As its title suggests, there is a possible combination of 77 million paintings where the viewer will see different combinations of video slides prepared by Eno each time the program is launched. Likewise, the accompanying music is generated by the program so that it's almost certain the listener will never quite hear the same arrangement twice. The second edition of "77 Million Paintings" featuring improved morphing and a further two layers of sound was released on 14 January 2008. In June 2007, when commissioned in the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts in San Francisco, California, Annabeth Robinson (AngryBeth Shortbread) recreated 77 Million Paintings in Second Life.[14]
In 2007, Eno's music was featured in a movie adaption of Irvine Welsh's best-selling collection Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance. He also appeared playing keyboards in Voila, Belinda Carlisle's solo album sung entirely in French.
Also in 2007, Eno contributed a composition titled "Grafton Street" to Dido's third album, Safe Trip Home, released in November 2008.[15]
In 2008, he released Everything That Happens Will Happen Today with David Byrne, designed the sound for the video game Spore and wrote a chapter to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture, edited by Paul D. Miller (a.k.a. DJ Spooky).
Eno revealed on radio in May 2009 that a skin graft he received as treatment for a severe burn on his arm was part human skin, part carbon fibre. He explained that as human skin is based on carbon, the experimental treatment was likely going to work out well for him, in spite of the fact that he feels a lightness in the affected arm.[16]
In June 2009, Eno curated the Luminous Festival at Sydney Opera House, culminating in his first live appearance in many years. "Pure Scenius" consisted of three live improvised performances on the same day, featuring Eno, Australian improv trio The Necks, Karl Hyde from Underworld, electronic artist Jon Hopkins and guitarist Leo Abrahams.
Eno scored the music for Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lovely Bones, released in December 2009.[17]
In May 2010, the same Pure Scenius line-up as in 2009 performed 'This is Pure Scenius!', in the same format of three live improvised performances on the same day, at the Brighton Festival in England. Also at the 2010 Brighton Festival, after a performance of Woojun Lee's live arrangement of 'Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks' by Icebreaker and BJ Cole, Eno and the band performed four of his songs.
Eno released a new solo album on Warp Records in late 2010. Small Craft on a Milk Sea, made in association with long-time collaborator Leo Abrahams and Jon Hopkins, was released on 2 November in the United States and 15 November in the UK.[18] Eno also sang backing vocals on Anna Calvi's debut album on two songs "Desire" and "Suzanne & I".[19]
He later released Drums Between The Bells,[20] a collaboration with poet Rick Holland, on 4 July 2011, and the EP Panic Of Looking from the same recordings.
From the beginning of his solo career in 1973, Eno was in demand as a producer – though his management now describe him as a "sonic landscaper" rather than a producer. The first album with Eno credited as producer was Lucky Leif and the Longships by Robert Calvert. Eno's lengthy string of producer credits includes albums for Talking Heads, U2, Devo, Ultravox and James. He also produced part of the 1993 album When I Was a Boy by Jane Siberry. He won the best producer award at the 1994 and 1996 BRIT Awards.
Despite being a self-professed "non-musician", Eno has contributed to recordings by artists as varied as Nico, Robert Calvert, Genesis, David Bowie, and Zvuki Mu, in various capacities such as use of his studio/synthesiser/electronic treatments, vocals, guitar, bass guitar, and as just being 'Eno'. In 1984, he (along with several other authors) composed and performed the "Prophecy Theme" for the David Lynch film Dune; the rest of the soundtrack was composed and performed by the group Toto. Eno produced performance artist Laurie Anderson's Bright Red album, and also composed for it. The work is avant-garde spoken word with haunting and magnifying sounds. Eno played on David Byrne's musical score for The Catherine Wheel, a project commissioned by Twyla Tharp to accompany her Broadway dance project of the same name.
Eno co-produced The Unforgettable Fire (1984), The Joshua Tree (1987), Achtung Baby (1991), and All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000) for U2 with his frequent collaborator Daniel Lanois, and produced 1993's Zooropa with Mark "Flood" Ellis. In 1995, U2 and Eno joined forces to create the album Original Soundtracks 1 under the group name Passengers; songs from OST1 included "Your Blue Room" and "Miss Sarajevo". He also produced Laid (1993), Wah Wah (1994) and Pleased to Meet You (2001) for James.
Eno played on the 1986 album Measure for Measure by Australian band Icehouse. He remixed two tracks for Depeche Mode, "I Feel You" and "In Your Room", both single releases from the album Songs of Faith and Devotion in 1993. In 1995, Eno provided one of several remixes of "Protection" by Massive Attack (originally from their Protection album) for release as a single. The single also included more remixes by DJs J-Swift, Tom D, and Underdog.
In 2007, he produced the fourth studio album by Coldplay entitled Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, which was released in 2008. Also in 2008, he worked with Grace Jones on her album Hurricane, credited for "production consultation" and as a member of the band, playing keyboards, treatments and background vocals. With frequent collaborator Daniel Lanois, he worked on the twelfth studio album by U2, titled No Line on the Horizon. It was recorded in Morocco, South France and Dublin and released in Europe on 27 February 2009.
In 2011, Eno and Coldplay reunited and produced Coldplay's fifth studio album Mylo Xyloto, released on 24 October of that year.
In 1994, Microsoft corporation designers Mark Malamud and Erik Gavriluk approached Brian Eno to compose music for the Windows 95 project. The result was the six-second start-up music-sound of the Windows 95 operating system, The Microsoft Sound. In an interview with Joel Selvin in the San Francisco Chronicle he said:
The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, "Here's a specific problem — solve it."
The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional," this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said "and it must be 31/4 seconds long."[† 1]
I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.
In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.
[21]
Eno shed further light on the composition of the sound on the BBC Radio 4 show The Museum of Curiosity, explaining that he created it using an Apple Mac computer, and stating "I wrote it on a Mac. I’ve never used a PC in my life; I don’t like them".[22]
In 1996, he collaborated in developing the SSEYO Koan generative music system (by Pete Cole and Tim Cole of intermorphic) that he used in composing the hybrid music in the album Generative Music 1:
Some very basic forms of generative music have existed for a long time, but as marginal curiosities. Wind chimes are an example, but the only compositional control you have over the music they produce is in the original choice of notes that the chimes will sound. Recently, however, out of the union of synthesisers and computers, some much finer tools have evolved. Koan Software is probably the best of these systems, allowing a composer to control not one, but one-hundred and fifty musical and sonic parameters, within which the computer then improvises (as wind improvises the wind chimes).
The works I have made with this system symbolise, to me, the beginning of a new era of music. Until a hundred years ago, every musical event was unique: music was ephemeral and unrepeatable, and even classical scoring couldn't guarantee precise duplication. Then came the gramophone record, which captured particular performances, and made it possible to hear them identically, over and over again.
But now, there are three alternatives: live music, recorded music, and generative music. Generative music enjoys some of the benefits of both its ancestors. Like live music, it is always different. Like recorded music, it is free of time-and-place limitations — you can hear it when and where you want.
I really think it is possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say: "You mean you used to listen to exactly the same thing over and over again?"
As C.S.J. Bofop, in 1996, he said:
Each of the twelve pieces on
Generative Music 1 has a distinctive character. There are, of course, the ambient works ranging from the dark, almost mournful "Densities III" (complete with distant bells), to [the] translucent "Lysis (Tungsten)". These are contrasted with pieces in dramatically different styles, such as "Komarek", with its hard-edged, angular melodies, reminiscent of
Schoenberg's early serial experiments, and "Klee 42" whose simple polyphony is similar to that of the early Renaissance, but, of course, the great beauty of Generative Music is that those pieces will never sound quite that way again.
Eno has also been active in other artistic fields, producing videos for gallery display and collaborating with visual artists in other endeavours. One is the set of "Oblique Strategies" cards that he and artist Peter Schmidt, produced in the mid-1970s, described as "100 Worthwhile Dilemmas" and intended as guides to shaking up the mind in the process of producing works of art. Another was his collaboration with artist Russell Mills on the book More Dark Than Shark. He was also the provider of music for Robert Sheckley's In the Land of Clear Colours, a narrated story with music originally published by a small art gallery in Spain.
Eno appeared as Father Brian Eno at the "It's Great Being a Priest!" convention, in "Going to America", the final episode of the television sitcom Father Ted, which originally aired on 1 May 1998 on Channel 4.
In March 2008 Eno collaborated with the Italian artist Mimmo Paladino on a show of the latter's works with Eno's soundscapes at Ara Pacis in Rome.
In 2008, Eno designed the procedurally-generated music for the video game Spore.[23]
In October 2008, Eno collaborated with Peter Chilvers to create an application titled Bloom, Trope, and Air for the iOS platform.[24]
Eno was the guest curator of the 2009 Sydney Festival and the 2010 Brighton Festival.[25]
Lizard Point from On Land is featured in the 2010 film Shutter Island. The Song "An Ending" was also featured secretly in the 2011 feature film Drive during an elevator scene involving Ryan Gosling.
Eno is frequently referred to as one of popular music's most influential artists.[26] Critic Jason Ankeny at Allmusic argues that Eno "forever altered the ways in which music is approached, composed, performed, and perceived, and everything from punk to techno to new age bears his unmistakable influence."[3] He has spread his techniques and theories primarily through his production; his distinctive style affected a number of projects he's been involved in, including Bowie's Berlin Trilogy (helping to popularise minimalism) and the albums he produced for Talking Heads (incorporating African music and polyrhythms on Eno's advice), Devo, and other groups.[27] Eno's first collaboration with David Byrne, 1981's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, pioneered sampling techniques and broke ground by incorporating world music.[28] Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies have been utilised by many bands, and Eno's production style has proven influential in several general respects: "his recording techniques have helped change the way that modern musicians – particularly electronic musicians – view the studio. No longer is it just a passive medium through which they communicate their ideas but itself a new instrument with seemingly endless possibilities."[29]
While not the only inventor of ambient music, Eno is seen as a major contributor to the genre. The Ambient Music Guide argues that he has brought from "relative obscurity into the popular consciousness" fundamental ideas about ambient music, including "the idea of modern music as subtle atmosphere, as chill-out, as impressionistic, as something that creates space for quiet reflection or relaxation."[29] His groundbreaking work in electronic music has been said to have brought widespread attention to and innovations in the role of electronic technology in recording.[30]
In 2001 Half Man Half Biscuit released an EP entitled "Eno Collaboration", which contains a track of the same name.
MGMT wrote a song about Eno, called "Brian Eno", in their 2010 album Congratulations.
In 2011, Belgian academics from the Royal Museum for Central Africa named a species of Afrotropical spider Pseudocorinna brianeno in his honour.[31]
Brian Eno has been active politically throughout his life, frequently writing letters to government ministers, appearing on political debates, and writing newspaper columns to express his political views. He was sharply critical of the Thatcher government's decision to reduce funding to the BBC World Service, arguing that the £5 million cut to its £25 million budget was damaging, and was the equivalent cost of "just one wing of one F-16 fighter jet"- a reference to a large order of military hardware the government had just made.[citation needed]
In 1996, Eno and others started the Long Now Foundation to educate the public about the very long term future of society.[32] He is also a columnist for the British newspaper The Observer.
In 2003, he appeared on a UK Channel 4 discussion about the Iraq war with a top military spokesman; Eno was highly critical of the war. In 2005, he spoke at an anti-war demonstration in Hyde Park, London. In March 2006, he spoke at an anti-war demonstration at Trafalgar Square; he noted that 2 billion people on this planet do not have clean drinking water, and that water could have been supplied to them for about one-fifth of the cost of the Iraq war.[citation needed]
The Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition mobile phone features exclusive music composed by Eno.[33] Between 8 January 2007 and 12 February 2007, ten units of Nokia 8800 Sirocco Brian Eno Signature Edition mobile phones, individually numbered and engraved with Eno's signature were auctioned off. All proceeds went to two charities chosen by Eno: the Keiskamma Aids Treatment program and The World Land Trust.[34]
In 2006, Eno was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter calling for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions.[35]
In December 2007, the newly-elected Leader of Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, appointed Eno as his youth affairs adviser.[36]
In January 2009, Eno spoke out against Israel's military action on the Gaza Strip by writing an opinion for CounterPunch and participating in a large-scale protest in London.[37][38]
- Studio albums
-
- Solo albums
- Here Come the Warm Jets (1973), Island
- Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974), Island
- Another Green World (1975), Island
- Discreet Music (1975), Obscure
- Before and After Science (1977), Polydor
- Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978), Polydor
- Music for Films (1978), Polydor
- Ambient 4: On Land (1982), E.G.
- Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983), E.G.
- More Music for Films (1983), E.G.
- Thursday Afternoon (1985), E.G.
- Nerve Net (1992), Opal
- The Shutov Assembly (1992), Warner Bros.
- Neroli (1993), All Saints
- The Drop (1997), Thirsty Ear
- Another Day on Earth (2005), Hannibal
-
- Ambient installation albums
- Bracewell, Michael Roxy Music: Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Art, Ideas, and Fashion (Da Capo Press, 2005) ISBN 0-306-81400-5
- Eno, Brian, Russell Mills and Rick Poynor More Dark Than Shark (Faber & Faber, 1986, out of print)
- Espartaco Carlos Eduardo Sanguinetti: The Experience of Limits, p. 9 (Ediciones de Arte Gaglianone, first published 1989) ISBN 950-9004-98-7
- Eno, Brian A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary (Faber & Faber, 1996) ISBN 0-571-17995-9
- I Dormienti with Mimmo Paladino (2000). Limited edition of 2000.
- Sheppard, David On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno (Orion Books, 2008) ISBN 978-0-7528-7570-5
- Tamm, Eric Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound (Da Capo Press, 1995, first published 1989) ISBN 0-306-80649-5
- Dayal, Geeta 33 1/3: Brian Eno's Another Green World (Continuum 2007) ISBN 978-0-8264-2786-1
- ^ The eventual length of The Microsoft Sound as supplied and used was roughly 6 seconds, not 31/4.
- ^ Estrella, Espie Ambient Music, about.com
- ^ AllMusic, Explore Music, "Ambient"
- ^ a b Jason Ankeny, ((( Brian Eno > Biography ))), allmusic
- ^ Prendergast, Mark The Ambient Century, Bloomsbury UK, 2000. ISBN 0-7475-4213-9
- ^ "Malcom Le Grice Installation". Wkv-stuttgart.de. http://www.wkv-stuttgart.de/en/programme/2006/exhibitions/expanded-media/malcolm-le-grice/. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ "Eno Left Roxy Music to do His Laundry". Contactmusic.com. http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/eno%20left%20roxy%20music%20to%20do%20his%20laundry. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ Prendergast, Mark (2001). The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Trance: The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. p118. ISBN 1-58234-134-6.
- ^ Thompson, Dave. "All Music review". Allmusic.com. http://www.allmusic.com/song/t821132. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ "The Birth of Loop". Loopers-delight.com. 13 October 1996. http://www.loopers-delight.com/history/Loophist.html. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ Prendergast, The Ambient Century: p.93
- ^ "''Ambient 4: On Land'' 1986 release notes". Music.hyperreal.org. http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/onland-txt.html. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ "Pro Session – The Studio as Compositional Tool". Music.hyperreal.org. http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/interviews/downbeat79.htm. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ Dahlen, Chris (17 July 2006). "Interview: David Byrne". Pitchfork Media. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/37176/Interview_Interview_David_Byrne.
- ^ Author, Unknown. "77-million-paintings-brian-eno". 77 Million Paintings. The Long Now Foundation. http://longnow.org/events/02007/jun/29/77-million-paintings-brian-eno/. Retrieved 1.11.2011.
- ^ Aizlewood, John. "In The Studio". Q Magazine. October 2007.
- ^ "Interview with Sydney University Radio Group, 18 May 2009". News.surgfm.org. http://news.surgfm.org/?page_id=178. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ "Brian Eno: The Lovely Bones". http://upcomingfilmscores.blogspot.com/2008/12/brian-eno-lovely-bones.html.
- ^ "Pitchfork: Source: Brian Eno Reveals Warp Album Details". Pitchfork.com. http://pitchfork.com/news/39830-brian-eno-reveals-warp-album-details/. Retrieved 23 August 2010.
- ^ "Desire by Anna Calvi Songfacts". Songfacts.com. http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=22528. Retrieved 2012-03-25.
- ^ "Drums Between The Bells & Panic Of Looking". Brian Eno. http://brian-eno.net/drums-between-the-bells/. Retrieved 2012-03-25.
- ^ Joel Selvin, Chronicle Pop Music Critic (2 June 1996). "Q and A With Brian Eno". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1996/06/02/PK70006.DTL. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ Adam Bunker, Technology Journalist (23 November 2011). "Brian Eno spills Windows start-up sound secrets". Electricpig. http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2011/11/23/brian-eno-spills-windows-start-up-sound-secrets/. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
- ^ "GameSpy: Spore – Page 2". Pc.gamespy.com. http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/spore/907564p2.html. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ "Eno and Chilvers Release Sweet Music App for iPhone | Listening Post". Blog.wired.com. 9 October 2008. http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/10/review-brian-en.html. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ Higgins, Charlotte (27 November 2009). "Brian Eno to curate Brighton festival". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/nov/27/brian-eno-curate-brighton-festival. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
- ^ Randall Roberts, "Brian Eno to Lecture CSU-Long Beach, Present 77 Million Paintings, Blow Our Minds", LA Weekly, 30 July 2009
- ^ Musician Guide, "Brian Eno Biography"
- ^ Gina Vivinetto, "Reasons to know Brian Eno", SP Times, 1 July 2004
- ^ a b Ambient Music Guide, "Brian Eno"
- ^ Richardson, Mark. "Pitchfork: Interviews: Brian Eno". Pitchfork Media. pitchfork.com. 1 November 2010. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
- ^ Rudy Jocque & Jan Bosselaers, "Revision of Pseudocorinna Simon and a new related genus (Araneae: Corinnidae): two more examples of spider templates with a large range of complexity in the genitalia"
- ^ Eno, Brian. "The Big Here and Long Now". http://www.longnow.org/views/essays/articles/BrianEnoLongNow.php. Retrieved 11 May 2009. "How could you live so blind to your surroundings? ... I called it "The Small Here" ... I was used to living in a bigger Here ... I noticed that this very local attitude to space in New York paralleled a similarly limited attitude to time ... I came to think of this as "The Short Now", and this suggested the possibility of its opposite – "The Long Now"."
- ^ Nokia Press Release (4 September 2006). "Winds of change"
- ^ Nokia Press Release (20 December 2006). "Nokia and Brian Eno pair up for two great causes" ; "Nokia 8800 Sirocco Brian Eno Signature Edition Charity Auction"
- ^ Israel boycott may be the way to peace, The Guardian letters, 15 December 2006
- ^ Hélène Mulholland (19 December 2007). "Clegg hires Brian Eno as youth adviser". London: Politics.guardian.co.uk. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/libdems/story/0,,2229807,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ "''Stealing Gaza: An Experiment in Provocation'': article by Brian Eno at CounterPunch". Counterpunch.org. http://www.counterpunch.org/eno01022009.html. Retrieved 22 July 2010.
- ^ "UK protests in support of Gaza" article by Thisislondon.co.uk
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| Supernatural performed by Santana (Rodney Holmes, Tony Lindsay, Karl Perazzo, Raul Rekow, Benny Rietveld, Carlos Santana, Chester Thompson); engineered/mixed by Alvaro Villagra, Andy Grassi, Anton Pukshansky, Benny Faccone, Chris Theis, Commissioner Gordon, David Frazer, David Thoener, Glenn Kolotkin, Jeff Poe, Jim Gaines, Jim Scott, John Gamble, John Karpowich, John Seymour, Matty Spindel, Mike Couzzi, Steve Farrone, Steve Fontano, T-Ray, Tom Lord-Alge, Tony Prendatt & Warren Riker; produced by Alex Gonzales, Art Hodge, Charles Goodan, Clive Davis, Dante Ross, Dust Brothers, Fher Olvera, Jerry 'Wonder' Duplessis, K. C. Porter, Lauryn Hill, Matt Serletic, Stephen M. Harris & Wyclef Jean (2000) |
Two Against Nature performed by Steely Dan (Walter Becker, Donald Fagen); engineered/mixed by Dave Russell, Elliot Scheiner, Phil Burnett & Roger Nichols; produced by Donald Fagen & Walter Becker (2001) |
| O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack performed by Alison Krauss & Union Station (Barry Bales, Ron Block, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, Dan Tyminski), Chris Sharp, Chris Thomas King, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Harley Allen, John Hartford, Mike Compton, Norman Blake, Pat Enright, Peasall Sisters (Hannah Peasall, Leah Peasall, Sarah Peasall), Ralph Stanley, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, The Cox Family (Evelyn Cox, Sidney Cox, Suzanne Cox, Willard Cox), The Fairfield Four (Nathan Best, Isaac Freeman, Robert Hamlett, James Hill, Joseph Rice, Wilson Waters, Jr.), The Whites (Buck White, Cheryl White, Sharon White) & Tim Blake Nelson; engineered/mixed by Mike Piersante & Peter Kurland; master engineered by Gavin Lurssen; produced by T-Bone Burnett (2002) |
Come Away with Me performed by Norah Jones; engineered/mixed by Jay Newland & S. Husky Höskulds; master engineered by Ted Jensen; produced by Arif Mardin, Craig Street, Jay Newland & Norah Jones (2003) |
| Speakerboxxx/The Love Below performed by OutKast (André 3000, Big Boi); engineered/mixed by Brian Paturalski, Chris Carmouche, Darrell Thorp, Dexter Simmons, John Frye, Kevin Davis, Matt Still, Moka Nagatani, Neal H. Pogue, Padraic Kernin, Pete Novak, Reggie Dozier, Robert Hannon, Terrence Cash & Vincent Alexander; master engineered by Bernie Grundman & Brian Gardner; produced by André 3000, Big Boi & Carl Mo (2004) |
Genius Loves Company performed by Ray Charles and Various Artists; engineered/mixed by Al Schmitt, Ed Thacker, Joel W. Moss, John Harris, Mark Fleming, Pete Karam, Robert Fernandez, Seth Presant & Terry Howard; master engineered by Doug Sax & Robert Hadley; produced by Don Mizell, Herbert Waltl, John R. Burk, Phil Ramone & Terry Howard (2005) |
| How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb performed by U2 (Bono, Adam Clayton, The Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr.); engineered/mixed by Carl Glanville, Flood, Greg Collins, Jacknife Lee, Nellee Hooper, Simon Gogerly & Steve Lillywhite; master engineered by Arnie Acosta; produced by Brian Eno, Chris Thomas, Daniel Lanois, Flood, Jacknife Lee & Steve Lillywhite (2006) |
Taking the Long Way performed by Dixie Chicks (Martie Maguire, Natalie Maines, Emily Robison); engineered/mixed by Chris Testa, Jim Scott & Richard Dodd; master engineered by Richard Dodd; produced by Rick Rubin (2007) |
| River: The Joni Letters performed by Herbie Hancock; featuring Norah Jones, Joni Mitchell, Corinne Bailey Rae , Tina Turner ; produced by Herbie Hancock & Larry Klein; engineered/mixed by Helik Hadar; master engeineered by Bernie Grundman (2008) |
Raising Sand performed by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss; produced by T-Bone Burnett; engineered/mixed by Mike Piersante; master engeineered by Gavin Lurssen (2009) |
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"Smooth"* by Santana (Rodney Holmes, Tony Lindsay, Karl Perazzo, Raul Rekow, Benny Rietveld, Carlos Santana, Chester Thompson) featuring Rob Thomas
engineered/mixed by David Thoener, produced by Matt Serletic (2000) |
"Beautiful Day"* by U2 (Bono, Adam Clayton, The Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr.)
engineered/mixed by Richard Rainey & Steve Lillywhite; produced by Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois (2001) |
"Walk On" by U2 (Bono, Adam Clayton, The Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr.)
engineered/mixed by Richard Rainey & Steve Lillywhite; produced by Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois (2002) |
"Don't Know Why"* by Norah Jones;
engineered/mixed by Jay Newland; produced by Arif Mardin, Jay Newland & Norah Jones (2003) |
"Clocks" by Coldplay (Guy Berryman, Jon Buckland, Will Champion, Phil Harvey, Chris Martin)
engineered/mixed by Coldplay, Ken Nelson & Mark Phythian; produced by Coldplay & Ken Nelson (2004) |
"Here We Go Again" by Ray Charles and Norah Jones
engineered/mixed by Al Schmitt, Mark Fleming, & Terry Howard; produced by John R. Burk (2005) |
"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day (Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, Frank Edwin Wright III)
engineered/mixed by Chris Lord-Alge & Doug McKean, produced by Green Day & Rob Cavallo (2006) |
"Not Ready to Make Nice"* by Dixie Chicks (Martie Maguire, Natalie Maines, Emily Robison)
engineered/mixed by Chris Testa, Jim Scott & Richard Dodd; produced by Rick Rubin (2007) |
"Rehab"* by Amy Winehouse
engineered/mixed by Tom Elmhirst, Vaughan Merrick, Dom Morley, Mark Ronson & Gabriel Roth; produced by Mark Ronson (2008) |
"Please Read the Letter" by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant
engineered/mixed by Mike Piersante; produced by T-Bone Burnett (2009) |
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| Persondata |
| Name |
Eno, Brian |
| Alternative names |
Eno, Brian Peter George; Eno, Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle |
| Short description |
Producer, musician |
| Date of birth |
1948-5-15 |
| Place of birth |
Woodbridge, Suffolk, England |
| Date of death |
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| Place of death |
|
