Brian Eno - C or D?

I mean he exposes himself and shows her sex toys in that interview (she doesn't seem at all flummoxed by it - this is Chrissie Hynde after all - but at the very least it indicates that this was a guy more than happy to cross lines)

exactly ^^^

"claims that he could be a bit of a lothario" come directly from the man himself openly discussing his sexual exploits and preferences in many interviews over the years. not "claims", not "could", not "a bit". to be sort of blunt, he is a documented horndog. having no personal experience with brian eno in this regard, i wouldn't know this unless i had read it repeatedly over the years.

seems more productive to just that his reputation as a perv exists because he made it that way and move on.

just *accept

So I have tried to relisten to "Discreet Music" for the 1st time after more than 30 years. It was a weird experience. The music was unbelievably familiar to me. I had forgotten that it was quite tuneful and easy to listen to. And I found it extremely relaxing and meditative. But after a while the usual happened. I got bored by the repetiveness, the motiv had consumed itself. After 12 minutes I could not continue to listen.It had become an ordeal like a zen meditation session where you sit in front of the wall and the limbs which you are not supposed to move for hours begin to ache. So I decided to stop it. And I do not think I will listen to DM again in the next 30 years. My fave ambient piece of Eno is still "Through Hollow Lands" from BaAS, it is wonderful looking at that lake where the water stands still. And it has exactly the length a piece like this should have (I think around 3-4 minutes) and not one second more. 31 minutes where one musical idea is trampled to death on the other hand does not interest me and seems like the work of a megalomaniac who does not give a shit about his audience.

So I guess ambient music is not for you then.

nor meditation, I would guess

"through hollow lands" is really wonderful

really sad take on ambient music there, al

So I guess ambient music is not for you then.

Except, “Discreet Music“ is anything but unimaginative.

True, there are some happy accidents there (he mistakenly played the finished tape at half speed to Fripp) and it is very much generative (so much so he apparently left the tape running while answering the phone and the like). But the way the lines unfold and overlap to create new melodies and variations is sublime and the tones themselves are evocative and deceptively complex (for evidence, read Tamm’s take on this, starting on page 30: https://monoskop.org/images/f/f1/Tamm_Eric_Brian_Eno_His_Music_and_the_Vertical_Color_of_Sound.pdf ).

It’s fine if you don’t care for long generative stuff—much of Eno’s is hit or miss—and he can sometimes talk about it as if he’s the first person any of this ever occurred to. But don’t think for a second that a lot of work doesn’t go into these pieces – and nothing about this one says “I don’t give a shit about my audience.”

I don't like his generative music much either but "Discreet Music" somehow exists outside that, sometimes I think it's the best thing he ever did. So far.

xpost Give the Music for Films comps another shot, then. They're more bite sized compositions, and have a lot in common with the ambient nuggets on AGW and BaAS.

It's interesting to me that generative or random music can resemble repetition. I mean, I still know exactly what you mean! That's why I always preferred stuff like Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, which is less conceptual and a lot more formalized. It's definitely repetitive, but when it shifts the movements can be quite dramatic. But I always find for that reason that it makes inferior background music, and sitting still listening to all the stuff shifting around for 45 minutes is hypnotic and beautiful but more of a commitment.

Yes, Steve Reich definitely doesn't work as background music!

I love the "Music for Films" album. Quite short, composed, impressionist pieces. I especially like the fact that those films which are described in the booklet do not exist. That makes the whole project even more charming.

I pretty much like Steve Reich's "Drumming". To spot those micro-shfts demands attentive listening and there is indeed a hypnotic quality. Compared to DM it is more physical, maybe another reason I prefer it. What I do not like at all is the combination of ambient non-rhythmic music with too much repetition. Repetition in rhythm if it is not perfect like in computer beats is fine with me.

What you need is some Autechre!

I rank most of the vocal albums.

https://humanizingthevacuum.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/maxresdefault.jpg?w=1280&h=720

what is this suitcase keyboard and how do i get one

That's an EMS Synthi AKS, there's one on Ebay for about £16k right now.

It's a VCS-3, aka a Putney. You can get kits to build one, or pay a lot on the secondary market for a real one.

The Putney is the earlier non-suitcase model, the one he's playing on that famous Virginia Plain footage with the feather boa.

There’s an app. Eno would probably suggest that’s good enough.

There’s an app. Eno would probably suggest that’s good enough.

There’s an app. Eno would probably suggest that’s good enough.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/27/b3/3c/27b33cdea42b22d4a7890ef7ff03e50d.jpg

I really like Another Day on Earth. I agree with your placing, but it's the one your list has made me want to dig out (it's not on Spotify, oddly).

Randomly, I once had a malarone-induced fever/dream, in a hut in Senegal, and Another Green World was my salve.

The iPad/iPhone VCS3 app is really really good, I would hazard that it is in fact good enough

There was a period when John McEntire was using a Putney with everything/everyone: Tortoise, Sea and Cake, Eleventh Dream Day. Rarely added more than just some buzzing and humming, iirc.

It’s a fascinating and perverse system - it leads you crazy places but I’m nowhere near smart enough to go into it with a path idea and come out with something resembling my intention.

^that sounds like something eno would embrace

McEntire bought his Putney from Oberlin. Stupid conservatory thought they didn’t need it.

xpost for sure! I guess that and the impossibly abstruse architecture of the DX7 are the two environments he most dug

I agree on your ranking, Alfred. The sheer explosion of creativity on the first album still leaves me speechless. Rarely has a pop album been so exciting. I think the only one which can compete in terms of going in so many different directions is the first Roxy Music album.

I prefer taking tiger mountain to here come the warm jets.

xps to Dan - wow!

They had another one. But then they sold a huge moog modular after I left. They kept the buchla.

My friend Phil put a deposit of £200 down on an AKS with EMS themselves in May 1994 and he's just taken possession of it last week!

Eno was famously detail oriented when it came to figuring those synths out. He was one of the few to master the DX7.

Xxps on reflection...

Green World
Science
Day on Earth
Tiger
Warm Jets
Wrong Way Up

Ambient with Budd - ON LAND - its great mysteru

I can get with Alfred's ranking. But what about Nerve Net and Squelchy Life?

(fwiw I'd put Squelchy above Wrong Way Up and Nerve Net below it)

sorry not WWU, I meant Another Day on Earth

excellent list (though my personal fave is before and after science)

I can get with Alfred's ranking. But what about Nerve Net and Squelchy Life?

― akm, Thursday, October 4, 2018

NN has vocals of a sort, but I don't rate it. I remember the excitement of buying the "Ali Click" CD single, though!

that "Long Trance" remix of Ali Click is soooo good

“Spider and I” has the we’ve-reached-the-summit quiet exhilaration that the title track to Taking Tiger Mountain fails to evoke

truest of truths, highest of highs

i love "my squelchy life" (and am glad it's now finally been officially released in its entirety) - i don't know if i'd put it over any of the Big Four but it's not far behind! in fact i'm just gonna listen to "the harness" again

brian eno's first teacher at art school:

“On our second day there, our first drawing exercise was to make a visual comparison between a venetian blind and a hot water tap. It was meant to be in terms of how they functioned, not in terms of how they looked. And this boggled everyone.

“And then the first main project was that the students were put in pairs, and each pair of students had to invent a game, the function of which was to make some kind of psychological behavioral evaluation of people who played it. So they weren’t necessarily competitive games, they were games that involved making a decision rather than a number of others, and then extrapolating things about people’s personalities on the basis of those decisions. I think there were thirty students altogether, so there were fifteen games made. They varied through all sorts of things: mine was a kind of board game, others were whole rooms that you went through and did various things in. Anyway, all the students went through this, and consequently each student ended up with fifteen so-called character profiles. From those character profiles you had to make what was called a Mind Map, which was a kind of diagrammatic scheme of how you tended to behave in lots of different situations, and then the next part of the project was that you had to then assume a character who was as far as possible opposite to that one, and that was who you were to be for the rest of the semester, which was like eight more weeks. This was very, very interesting.

“And then we were put into groups of five on the basis of these new assumed characters. The meekest person would be like the group policymaker, and the one who tended to talk most would be who got to do all the dirty work, like buying things from the shops. He would be the dogsbody; that was my job, actually. And so you had people working with characters who were quite alien to them.

“And each group of five had another project that was a very complicated one that I can’t explain, but we had to make the projects using those characters.

“There were some funny things (that) happened. There was one girl who was very timid, so part of her Mind Map stipulated that she had to walk this tightrope in front of the whole group every morning. This was her own stipulation, you know, these things weren’t imposed; having designed your own Mind Map you then worked out a number of behavior patterns that you carried out.

https://www.wired.com/2009/03/how-people-li-1/

curious about this:

As part of the Warp Records takeover on NTS Radio, Brian Eno has teamed up with Extinction Rebellion to create an hour long piece which will be broadcast on Sunday June 23rd at 16.00 BST - https://nts.live/wxaxrxp

I’m not sure if it’s fair to describe an invited guest DJ sesh as a “takeover”

But that sounds cool!