MEMORIES:
Brian Eno has built a prominent reputation in the music world and beyond, with his progressive experimentation and pioneering sounds. Eno’s career has been all over the map, working in bands, working with bands, working with his solo career, and being a part of our everyday lives – even when we never even knew it.
After attending the Winchester School of Art, Brian Eno embarked on what would be a long-lasting and prolific career that would define the very heart of electronic and ambient music. He got his big start in music as a member of the glam art-rock band, Roxy Music between the years of 1971 and 1973. Working behind the scenes at the mixing deck at their earlier live shows, he altered their sounds using a synthesizer, tape recorders, and other electronic devices. He also sang back-up, which led to Eno eventually joining the rest of the band onstage. Eno would wear elaborate, flamboyant costumes, helping to create the look that would become a Roxy Music hallmark. After completing the tour in support for their second album, For Your Pleasure, the ever-creative Eno left the band in part because he was bored with the life of a rock star on the road.
As a solo artist, Eno created four influential albums in the four years following his departure from Roxy Music – Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World and Before and After Science. The albums consisted of electronic pop music on varying ends of the ambient spectrum. Indeed, Eno has been credited with fathering ambient music as we know it today. “Third Uncle” from Taking Tiger Mountain became one of his best known songs as a solo artist, and was perhaps his most divergent from the records as a whole. The galloping, clattery percussion and guitar riffs could almost be considered early heavy metal, though the style is separated from that genre by its peculiar lyrics.
During this time, he toured with Phil Manzanera and Quiet Sun in the “supergroup” 801, playing mutated versions of classic songs by artists such as The Beatles and The Kinks. He was also a prominent member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia, as their clarinet player. He also produced the Sinfonia’s first album in 1974, as well as an album of their concert at The Royal Albert Hall in the same year.
Eno continued on, recording and producing a large volume of eclectic and electronic music, moving progressively more into ‘ambent.’ As noted above, Brian Eno is widely credited for coining the term ‘ambient music’ to describe low-volume music designed to change a person’s perception of a surrounding environment. He soon produced an ambient series, Music for Films, Music for Airports, The Plateaux of Mirror, Day of Radiance and On Land.
Brian Eno has remained active in music, using the term ‘treatments’ to describe his modifications of sounds of musical instruments. On Genesis’s The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Eno is credited with ‘Enossification.’ It could be said that one of his most influential collaborations was with David Bowie in his 1977-1979 ‘Berlin Trilogy,’ Low, Heroes, and Lodger. He also contributed to a later album by Bowie, Outside. In 1981, Eno collaborated with David Byrne of Talking Heads on the Brian Eno album, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. He has also had a long-standing collaborative relationship with Robert Fripp of King Crimson, on albums such as No Pussyfooting and the more recent 2004 release of The Equatorial Stars.
His impact can be felt throughout the music world, through simply inspiring and influencing other artists, to the more direct impact of working as a producer on albums from a wide array of artists. Eno’s producing credits include albums for Talking Heads, U2, Devo, Ultravox, and James. He’s also contributed to recordings by Genesis and Nico. He works on film soundtracks, such as the David Lynch film Dune. For years the world was hearing Eno’s influence, and most didn’t even know it. He created the start-up sound for the Windows 95 operating system, which-- ironically-- was created on his Apple computer.
Eno has also been active in other artistic arenas, producing videos for displays in galleries, as well as other visual arts endeavors. One of his creations is a deck of cards called the “Oblique Strategies” designed to guide people out of artistic mental-blocks. He has a column in the British newspaper The Observer, and remains active in all aspects of life as we know it. Most recently, Brian Eno produced Paul Simon’s album Surprise, as well as the release of his first solo vocal album in 15 years, Another Day on Earth. Also, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was re-released in 2006 with seven never-heard-before tracks being added.
The truth of the matter is that we could have pages upon pages on Brian Eno, perhaps taking up the very last little spot on the Internet with what we could say and write about the ‘non-musician.’ Looking upon that, it only speaks volumes on the prolific life and works of Brian Eno, asking us to take note and take notice to our surroundings and the sounds all around us, and to realize all that his touch has changed in our world.
