Eno

[craner]

Brian Eno : On Some Faraway Beach

Brian Eno : On Some Faraway Beach · Playlist · 573 songs · 1 likes

open.spotify.com

This is the playlist I made while reading a biography of eno a few years ago.

On Land
Discreet Music
Becalmed (and some others off Another Green World)
Eno and Fripp stuff
Eno/Cluster stuff
Some Bowie stuff (subterraneans)

Is it a playlist of every piece of music mentioned in the book in the order it was mentioned in?

 

[Corpsey]

Pretty much.

 

[sus]

Eno's still something of a mystery to me as I've literally just listened to the music. My engagement with anything outside that amounts to seeing the odd photo of him, reading the story about the music being very quiet whilst he was ill in bed and having a quick glance at an online version of Oblique Strategies.

the 33 1/3 book on Another Green World is pretty good, it's a short read. Nothing super special, but a good overview of his interest in chance, the interests in biology and paleontology from childhood that show up on that record, etc

 

[sus]

admittedly the self-promotion, "I'm not a musician", his whole "I'm a guru of creative thinking", makes it all so much worse

eh I feel like the "guru of creative thinking" thing comes late, and shouldn't poison his early career. The context on his going to art school, who he studied under, what he was interested in, are more serious than you're giving full credit for I think; TED culture has very little to do with 60s UK art school culture. I could cede that it's a bad sign the way his vibe's developed in later years, that it says something uncomely about that 60s uk art school culture, but they do feel like very different scenes, aesthetics, etc

 

[sus]

those are some great recs tho @Padraig, I'm lookin forward to divin in

 

[sus]

last nite I had a dream nightmare that there were only 3-4 actual people on Dissensus, and all the other accounts were alts

padraig (both padraigs) had always just been luka in disguise

 

[version]

I'd recommend reading that book if you're interested in Eno and know fuck all about music of the 70s/80s like me cos I discovered a lot of stuff by reading it.

Did you think he was a twat after reading it?

 

[craner]

Did you think he was a twat after reading it?

That would be a great exam question.

 

[jenks]

Apollo is a lovely album, as are the things he did with Harold Budd and also Jon Hassel. On Land is also really very good indeed.
I really like his recent stuff - Reflection and The Ship, he does a version of the Velvets’ I’m Set Free which I’m very fond of.

I’m not planning on convincing anyone but just sticking this here as a corrective to the sweeping generalisations of his work being boring. You either buy into his schtick or you don’t and if it’s the latter it’s probably easy to dismiss his work despite his having worked with lots of leading Dissensus favs - Cale, Riley, Nico, Fripp, various German bands, Jane Siberry...Obviously there’s U2, James and Coldplay to throw back at me, for which I have no defence.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

just looking for some new recs

that's what I figured

I don't rate all that stuff the same but the first couple posts especially are a decent overview of what I think of 70s avant rock

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

TED culture has very little to do with 60s UK art school culture

I didn't say it did, tho in his case the one leads into the other

the point is he's not unique - you can't throw a stone at British music of the 60s-70s without hitting a bunch of art school types

his ideas and influences aren't unique - I know what they are - and his main talent is self-aggrandizement

that long prefigures all the guru of creativity nonsense

it's right there in "inventing" ambient music, in Oblique Strategies, in pillaging krautrock for the Berlin trilogy, etc

it just so happens to a talent for self-aggrandizement also fits perfectly TED culture

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

of course he's not the devil, he's just a musician - or I'm sorry he's pointedly "not a musician"

version asked a general question, I answered what I think of him, that's all

 

[sus]

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

despite his having worked with lots of leading Dissensus favs - Cale, Riley, Nico, Fripp, various German bands

as always like whatever you like

but he didn't really make records with half those people - i.e. he plays synth on one Nico record, never produced anything for her

and the ones he did - like the Germans - are consistently the most boring in their oeuvre. Cluster + Eno? dead boring. so are Cluster w/o Eno, tbf.

(also are those really all "Dissensus favs"? some of them I guess)

you'd be better off making a no wave argument. that was yr typical Eno/Bowie cultural vampirism, but at least not boring.

 

[version]

Is this you?

 

[sus]

I didn't say it did, tho in his case the one leads into the other

Yeah what I meant to say was, the anti-musician stance was a separate strain (40 years apart) from the TEDx "unleash your inner creativity" strain— but the way one seems to have (b)led into the other, at least in Eno, is kinda damning—to the art school origins. Which, I think we're in agreement?Ditto with the U2 involvement maybe as well?

 

[sus]

Is this you?

Exactly, when I said I was a blonde Corpsey that's what I meant.

 

[WashYourHands]

Brian Eno, what the fuck does he know ?
Doodling away with a fuckin' alien haircut mate

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Which, I think we're in agreement?

that there's an art school - and/or art world - sensibility that transitions very easily into TED culture, sure

that it damns all art school origins, no

there are plenty of art school types who managed not to turn into what Eno's become

and plenty who did

the Steve Jobs comparison is apt, with Jobs being half a generation younger with all that implies about formative years (early 70s vs mid-late 60s)

Jobs had more of yr typical hippie sellout i.e. Jerry Rubin (an early Apple investor) in him - Eno was never a hippie

but they both have an aesthetic sensibility that easily makes art into design or design into art and transitions v easily between "art" and product

i.e. Eno famously creating the startup noise for Windows 95 (Ambient [X]: Music for Operating Systems)

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

you can point to Pop Art here, obviously

and I'm sure Eno was influenced by Fluxus like all art school types in the 60s i.e. Cale