Brian Eno -- Discreet Music
February 26, 2021 11:42 AM Subscribe
Sides 1 & 2 of
Brian Eno -- Discreet Music
Brian Eno -- Three Variations on Pachelbel's Canon in D
See also:
Discreet Music (Remastered 2004)
Brian Eno -- Thursday Afternoon (61 minute version)
Harold Budd -- Pitchfork review 10/07/2004
From 2015, Liam Carroll - Rebeat Magazine:Fullness of Wind: 40 Years of Brian Eno’s ‘Discreet Music’
A live remake: Contact -- Discreet Music
A review thereof: The Timelessness of Brian Eno: Contact's Discreet Music
And -- and consider the source:
Brian Eno -- Discreet Music (Reversed)
Brian Eno -- Discreet Music
Brian Eno -- Three Variations on Pachelbel's Canon in D
See also:
Discreet Music (Remastered 2004)
Brian Eno -- Thursday Afternoon (61 minute version)
Harold Budd -- Pitchfork review 10/07/2004
Contrary to what you may have heard, Brian Eno did not invent ambient music. In fact, he was merely building upon an idea coined by the eccentric French pianist Erik Satie, which he called “furniture music,” meaning music intended to be sort of like another object in the room, to just blend into the couch or the ottoman or the coffee table. ...Eno’s interpretation of this idea would aim to remove any trace of human objects; music stripped to its most basic essence. No lyrics, no verses, no choruses, no middle-eights, just a simple melody repeated over an extended period of time. ...For Eno, ambient music was as much about the simplicity of the music itself as it was about removing the human process from the creation of said music, instead leaving the finished product up to chance.
From 2015, Liam Carroll - Rebeat Magazine:Fullness of Wind: 40 Years of Brian Eno’s ‘Discreet Music’
A live remake: Contact -- Discreet Music
A review thereof: The Timelessness of Brian Eno: Contact's Discreet Music
And -- and consider the source:
Brian Eno -- Discreet Music (Reversed)
Contrary to what you may have heard, Brian Eno did not invent ambient music.
Eno's story as I recall hearing it was that he was not well, bedridden, suffering a bad fever. A friend put on a vinyl side of nice classical music but during their conversation, the volume got turned quite low. The friend left and the record kept playing at this extra low volume. The turntable was also set up to keep re-cueing, so the record kept playing and re-playing with Eno too exhausted to do anything about but it but lay back and float along with this barely audible ... ambience ... and ultimately get inspired.
posted by philip-random at 11:55 AM on February 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Eno's story as I recall hearing it was that he was not well, bedridden, suffering a bad fever. A friend put on a vinyl side of nice classical music but during their conversation, the volume got turned quite low. The friend left and the record kept playing at this extra low volume. The turntable was also set up to keep re-cueing, so the record kept playing and re-playing with Eno too exhausted to do anything about but it but lay back and float along with this barely audible ... ambience ... and ultimately get inspired.
posted by philip-random at 11:55 AM on February 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Thank you for that.
posted by y2karl at 11:55 AM on February 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 11:55 AM on February 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
I've been on a(nother) huge Eno kick lately, while reading his biography On Some Faraway Beach. I'm just as fine as he is with all the borrowing he's done over the years, and he always seemed to credit where it was due.
Aside from the Eno ambient records (Thursday Afternoon is a gem), the two Cluster & Eno LPs are priceless. I may be a bigger fan of ambient Cluster than ambient Eno -- which is really saying something.
And for fans of his vocals, my two discoveries this time out are 801 Live (a Manzanera project "live to mobile truck" date where Eno sang virtually every song) and Eno's 2000s vocal record Another Day on Earth (not available many places except for his store).
posted by saintjoe at 12:00 PM on February 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Aside from the Eno ambient records (Thursday Afternoon is a gem), the two Cluster & Eno LPs are priceless. I may be a bigger fan of ambient Cluster than ambient Eno -- which is really saying something.
And for fans of his vocals, my two discoveries this time out are 801 Live (a Manzanera project "live to mobile truck" date where Eno sang virtually every song) and Eno's 2000s vocal record Another Day on Earth (not available many places except for his store).
posted by saintjoe at 12:00 PM on February 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Eno's story as I recall hearing it
from that Harold Budd link, something of a correction:
Eno's ambient ideal was formed in 1975 during months of lying in a hospital bed recovering from a car accident, forced to listen to too-quiet 18th century harp music that his body cast prevented him from turning up. This alerted him to the way that recorded sound can effectively merge with the environment in which it's played, appealing to "many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular."
posted by philip-random at 12:02 PM on February 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
from that Harold Budd link, something of a correction:
Eno's ambient ideal was formed in 1975 during months of lying in a hospital bed recovering from a car accident, forced to listen to too-quiet 18th century harp music that his body cast prevented him from turning up. This alerted him to the way that recorded sound can effectively merge with the environment in which it's played, appealing to "many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular."
posted by philip-random at 12:02 PM on February 26, 2021 [6 favorites]
Discreet Music was originally released on Eno's own Obscure record label - all ten releases are available on ubuweb.
Highlights include the original Sinking of the Titanic/Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet by Gavin Bryars, the first Penguin Cafe Orchestra album, Harold Budd's The Pavilion of Dreams and a lovely album by John Cage and Jan Steele who was once very nice to a teenaged me at an English Gamelan Orchestra gig long ago.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:04 PM on February 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
Highlights include the original Sinking of the Titanic/Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet by Gavin Bryars, the first Penguin Cafe Orchestra album, Harold Budd's The Pavilion of Dreams and a lovely album by John Cage and Jan Steele who was once very nice to a teenaged me at an English Gamelan Orchestra gig long ago.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:04 PM on February 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
One of my favorite Eno ambient albums is Music for Airports. Here it is being performed by Bang on a Can in an actual airport.
posted by the sobsister at 12:12 PM on February 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by the sobsister at 12:12 PM on February 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Wow! Thanks to you both!
posted by y2karl at 12:12 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 12:12 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Whoa I just recommended Eno (including Thursday Afternoon & Music for Airports) in an AskMe looking for sleepytime music.
I was introduced to Eno in high school in Washington DC in the mid Eighties in a weird elective called 'Ambient Music Listening' where we'd gather in the music room and lie on the floor in silence listening to (of course) ambient records. Incredibly, to the best of my knowledge, no drugs were involved. I trundled myself down to the late lamented Kemp Mill Records on Wisconsin Ave. and there in the cutout bin with diagonal cuts on the top right corners were a stack of Eno's early EG records for like $1 apiece and I was psyched. I now listen to Eno digitally but there are a couple places on Music for Films that I still expect record pops and a bit of background hiss.
To add to the Eno-in-actual-airports recs: The Black Dog's Music for Real Airports which is inspired by and responds to Eno's original.
Awesome post. Thanks.
posted by googly at 12:34 PM on February 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I was introduced to Eno in high school in Washington DC in the mid Eighties in a weird elective called 'Ambient Music Listening' where we'd gather in the music room and lie on the floor in silence listening to (of course) ambient records. Incredibly, to the best of my knowledge, no drugs were involved. I trundled myself down to the late lamented Kemp Mill Records on Wisconsin Ave. and there in the cutout bin with diagonal cuts on the top right corners were a stack of Eno's early EG records for like $1 apiece and I was psyched. I now listen to Eno digitally but there are a couple places on Music for Films that I still expect record pops and a bit of background hiss.
To add to the Eno-in-actual-airports recs: The Black Dog's Music for Real Airports which is inspired by and responds to Eno's original.
Awesome post. Thanks.
posted by googly at 12:34 PM on February 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
I love Brian Eno, so much that his most popular and well-known work is the ringtone on my phone.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:38 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:38 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Discreet Music was originally issued as part of Eno's Obscure Records label, which is (as a Metafilter post almost ten years ago informed us) available on UbuWeb, all ten albums. The first is Gavin Bryars' devastating The Sinking of the Titanic / Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet.
posted by Grangousier at 12:45 PM on February 26, 2021
posted by Grangousier at 12:45 PM on February 26, 2021
Eno actually made a set of excellent ringtones for Nokia in 2006 - I still use them today. Available here (you'll need to convert them from QT format probably)
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:47 PM on February 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:47 PM on February 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Eno actually made a set of excellent ringtones for Nokia in 2006 - I still use them today.
Weird, fun, sideways musician fact: Thomas Dolby invented the Beatnik software, which Nokia used, which allowed all those ringtones to be played.
posted by hippybear at 12:58 PM on February 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Weird, fun, sideways musician fact: Thomas Dolby invented the Beatnik software, which Nokia used, which allowed all those ringtones to be played.
posted by hippybear at 12:58 PM on February 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Eno has also been one of two halves of some excellent collaborations. There's High Life, his excellent album with Karl Hyde (of Underworld) as well as a wonderful record (Wrong Way Up) with John Cale (which was apparently made amidst a great deal of contention, but the resulting art speaks for itself -- it's a masterpiece. Oh, and Spinner with Jah Wobble, another great one.
posted by vverse23 at 1:15 PM on February 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by vverse23 at 1:15 PM on February 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
which was apparently made amidst a great deal of contention
Where "contention" = finding a reliable heroin supply in rural Suffolk. Great record though - Spinning Away is a little-known classic.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:21 PM on February 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Where "contention" = finding a reliable heroin supply in rural Suffolk. Great record though - Spinning Away is a little-known classic.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:21 PM on February 26, 2021 [5 favorites]
Where "contention" = finding a reliable heroin supply in rural Suffolk.
at the risk of a sidetrack ...
John Cale Week In Week Out..Heroin Wales and me..
and Spinning Away has to rate in my all-time top forty. And I know a lot songs.
posted by philip-random at 1:30 PM on February 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
at the risk of a sidetrack ...
John Cale Week In Week Out..Heroin Wales and me..
and Spinning Away has to rate in my all-time top forty. And I know a lot songs.
posted by philip-random at 1:30 PM on February 26, 2021 [3 favorites]
Yay!!! Eno is the best. (Sorry, I have nothing substantive to add.)
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 1:36 PM on February 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 1:36 PM on February 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
A couple more possibly poorly known Eno tracks:
And then so clear - a beautiful song even though there's scarcely anything there
With Robert Wyatt, Flies
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:37 PM on February 26, 2021
And then so clear - a beautiful song even though there's scarcely anything there
With Robert Wyatt, Flies
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:37 PM on February 26, 2021
Don’t forget that Eno made the music for Spore.
posted by my-username at 1:58 PM on February 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by my-username at 1:58 PM on February 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
Primary evidence shows that Eno was not really trying to take credit for inventing anything. The liner notes written by Eno from "Music for Airports / Ambient 1" (released in 1978) literally start off with the following sentence:
Having said that, his reputation of taking credit for projects has some precedent , according to Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads, after producing the band's "Remain in Light" album he originally wanted the album to be credited "By Talking Heads and Brian Eno", but that ended up not happening.
Anyhoo, these are great links, thanks for sharing them!
posted by jeremias at 2:31 PM on February 26, 2021
The concept of music designed specifically as a background feature in the environment was pioneered by Muzak Inc. in the fifties...The full text of those liner notes are here.
Having said that, his reputation of taking credit for projects has some precedent , according to Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads, after producing the band's "Remain in Light" album he originally wanted the album to be credited "By Talking Heads and Brian Eno", but that ended up not happening.
Anyhoo, these are great links, thanks for sharing them!
posted by jeremias at 2:31 PM on February 26, 2021
My first exposure to Eno's ambient works was Neroli (Thinking Music part IV), which I bought after reading some article or interview with him about it.
posted by dnash at 3:14 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by dnash at 3:14 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Eno was not really trying to take credit for inventing anything...
I think he did claim to invent the "Frippertronics" tape delay technique, which was based on earlier tape experiments by Stockhausen (the basic concept: 2 deck loop with output mixed back into the input). To be charitable, Eno did make this style his own and ran away with it.
I'm a fan. Obscure Eno tracks: Johnny Cash cover.
posted by ovvl at 3:35 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
I think he did claim to invent the "Frippertronics" tape delay technique, which was based on earlier tape experiments by Stockhausen (the basic concept: 2 deck loop with output mixed back into the input). To be charitable, Eno did make this style his own and ran away with it.
I'm a fan. Obscure Eno tracks: Johnny Cash cover.
posted by ovvl at 3:35 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Looking forward to digging into these links! Thanks for this post. In the meantime, I'll just leave this here:
"...you could...make a case for erik satie’s concept of “furniture music” from 1917 being the original formulation of eno’s idea of music that you don’t have to pay attention to. and then there’s [Eliane] radigue, whose work is fundamental to the whole of ambient music but who rarely gets credit...radigue provides a direct link in the lineage that goes satie-schaeffer-radigue-eno..."
posted by velvet winter at 7:45 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
"...you could...make a case for erik satie’s concept of “furniture music” from 1917 being the original formulation of eno’s idea of music that you don’t have to pay attention to. and then there’s [Eliane] radigue, whose work is fundamental to the whole of ambient music but who rarely gets credit...radigue provides a direct link in the lineage that goes satie-schaeffer-radigue-eno..."
posted by velvet winter at 7:45 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Frederic Mompou's piano music, I've just been getting into, and it's RIYL Harold Budd as well as Satie. Here is his Música callada, with the composer at the piano in 1959..
posted by the sobsister at 7:57 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by the sobsister at 7:57 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Adding to the links is this set of “bell studies”. I think they fit into the ambient mode quite well - I play them quietly while writing or reading.
posted by cybrcamper at 10:29 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by cybrcamper at 10:29 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Here's his 3.25 seconds Windows '95 startup sound stretched about 40 times to over 2 minutes. It still sounds like Brian Eno.
(From Mr.Encyclopedia 's link above)
posted by ShooBoo at 11:46 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
(From Mr.Encyclopedia 's link above)
posted by ShooBoo at 11:46 PM on February 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Still faster than starting Windows 95.
posted by pracowity at 12:15 AM on February 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 12:15 AM on February 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
I love Brian Eno, so much that his most popular and well-known work is the ringtone on my phone.
That’s nothing, I love John Cage so much that my phone plays his most popular and well-known work on repeat at all times
posted by oulipian at 5:23 AM on February 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
That’s nothing, I love John Cage so much that my phone plays his most popular and well-known work on repeat at all times
posted by oulipian at 5:23 AM on February 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Fourth World Vol. 1 with Jon Hassell.
One of my favorites that weaves back and forth across the ambiguous boundary between ambient and atmospheric.
posted by allium cepa at 5:51 AM on February 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
One of my favorites that weaves back and forth across the ambiguous boundary between ambient and atmospheric.
posted by allium cepa at 5:51 AM on February 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
When living in a noisy area in the 70s. I slept every day with an endless loop of Evening Star. It still relaxes me instantly.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:08 AM on February 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:08 AM on February 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Coincidentally, I just ran across this link on another forum: Deconstructing Brian Eno’s “Discreet Music”
posted by Television Name at 9:31 AM on March 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Television Name at 9:31 AM on March 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
There is a substantial age gap between me and my brother who ended up being a huge influence on me in many ways, but especially musically. In the late 70s it was Station to Station, Music for Airports and Trans-Europa Express.
But Music for Airports is what I would hear late at night when he wasn't busy DXing distant AM stations or listening to SW news reports from around the world. I had absolutely no idea what it even was until he mentioned it in the 90s. At that point I had only a little knowledge about Eno, mostly from his days in Roxy Music.
posted by drstrangelove at 6:54 AM on March 4, 2021
But Music for Airports is what I would hear late at night when he wasn't busy DXing distant AM stations or listening to SW news reports from around the world. I had absolutely no idea what it even was until he mentioned it in the 90s. At that point I had only a little knowledge about Eno, mostly from his days in Roxy Music.
posted by drstrangelove at 6:54 AM on March 4, 2021
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