Born in Suffolk , Eno studied painting and experimental music at the art school of Ipswich Civic College in the mid s, and then at Winchester School of Art. He joined glam rock group Roxy Music as synthesizer player in , recording two albums with the group but departing in amidst tensions with Roxy frontman Bryan Ferry. Eno went on to record a number of solo albums beginning with Here Come the Warm Jets In the mids, he began exploring a minimalist direction on releases such as Discreet Music and Ambient 1: Music for Airports , coining the term "ambient music" with the latter. Dating back to his time as a student, Eno has also worked in other media, including sound installations , film, and writing. In the mids, he co-developed Oblique Strategies , a deck of cards featuring aphorisms intended to spur creative thinking. From the s onwards, Eno's installations have included the sails of the Sydney Opera House in [4] and the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank in An advocate of a range of humanitarian causes, Eno writes on a variety of subjects and is a founding member of the Long Now Foundation. The unusual surname Eno, long established in Suffolk, is thought to derive from the French Huguenot surname Hainault in today's Belgium. John le Baptiste de la Salle.
‘The Heavenly Music Corporation 1’ (Fripp & Eno, 1973)
Where people listen
Amorphous, open-ended, unstructured time, with undercurrents of foreboding, pockets of boredom and fleeting interludes of peace or reassessment. He does have other skills. He has intermittently made song albums in the decades since. Yet the bulk of his own recordings, and all of those selected here, are instrumentals that, old or new, are particularly suited to orchestrate this uneasy historical moment. Eno was not the first to make music designed to maintain a subliminal, atmospheric presence while evading the foreground. By his account, medical circumstance led him to thinking about music as just one element in a larger environment. Yet Eno himself has continued to rework what ambient music might mean with continual flexibility, shifting his approaches and adapting constantly to new technology and circumstances. There are clearly sounds he is drawn to repeatedly: glimmering reverberant timbres, uncannily sustained chords and clusters, melodic phrases that shy away from turning into melodies.
‘Discreet Music’ (1975)
On 13th November we're getting another album from Brian. As its name half-suggests, it's a compilation of music written for films and television also true of 's Music for Films which included "Alternative 3" from the Science Report documentary of the same name. There are seven previously unreleased tracks alongside old favourites like pieces from Apollo and other completist-only tracks that deserve a wider hearing, such as Eno's cover of "You Don't Miss Your Water", and the "Prophecy Theme" from Dune. Film Music — can be pre-ordered from your local record store, or here. Deutsche Grammophon appears to have been so happy with Mixing Colours that it rapidly released a follow-up vinyl EP Luminous on 14th August, both as a limited edition yellow disc and in a double black Mixing Colours vinyl album. The EP features 7 new tracks; they are also available digitally and for streaming.
The revered producer has been at the centre of pop since the days of Roxy Music. Or careers. With his shoulder-length hair and androgynous beauty, there was something otherworldly about Eno. He was as preposterous as he was cool. After two wonderfully adventurous albums he left and Roxy became more conventional. There followed a sustained solo career, starting with the more poppy Here Come the Warm Jets , progressing to the defiant obscurity of his ambient albums and on to commercial Eno, the revered producer behind many of the great Bowie, Talking Heads, U2 and Coldplay records.
