Eno, Brian

Artist: Brian Eno + David Byrne
P: 1981
Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts appears downright visionary. With its "found" vocals, cut-and-paste arrangements, funked-up rhythms and embrace of influences from all around the globe, the duo's controversial work anticipated the creative cross-pollination and technological innovation of contemporary dance music, world music, hip hop and alternative rock. You can hear echoes of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in the anthems Moby built around vintage vocal samples, in the outrageously exotic beats of Missy Elliot and Timbaland, in the Middle Eastern accented chill-out tracks of Thievery Corporation or Bjork's otherworldly soundscapes.

Artist: Brian Eno
P: 1980 / 2009
By 1980, Brian Eno had found his own voice and had his technique firmly in grasp. Having spent the better part of the '70s developing looping mechanisms and then laying the groundwork for ambient music with historic recordings such as "No Pussyfooting" (a collaboration with Robert Fripp), "Discreet Music", and "Music For Airports" and fusing these ideas with David Bowie's paranoid idiom (on Bowie's Berlin trilogy, amongst the most powerful music Bowie has ever done), Eno was at the height of his powers. It is into this regard that "The Plateaux of Mirror" was recorded. A collaboration with minimalist composer and pianist Harold Budd, this record is quite different from the rest.
What Budd provides is a stronger sense of evocative composition than Eno does-- this frees Eno to focus on technical details and technique. The result: a melancholy sort of record filled with moody interludes and tracks. Its far more theme-driven and less loop-driven than Eno's previous or contemporary work. This lends itself well to listeners who aren't really overly enamored with the idea of loop-based music. The work is particularly superb on the melancholy "First Light", the dark "Not Yet Remembered", and the noisy and mysterious "Wind in Lonely Places".
If there's a fault with this record, its that it has a bit of a sameness to it that prevents it from really shining, but its some beautiful music, and a great entry point into the catalogs of either Eno or the lesser known (but often equally brilliant) Budd.

Artist: Brian Eno + J. Peter Schwalm
P: 2001
Picking up where such seminal Eno recordings as Music for Airports and Another Green World left off, the inveterate innovator-producer's first recording in four years is a surreal tableau of loping beats and eerie sounds enveloped in dark yet serene atmospherics. With German percussionist Schwalm contributing softly swinging drumming, Eno is free to dabble in sounds ranging from Middle Eastern string quartets to crying machines and Vocoders to happy, babbling babies. One of Life's many highlights is Laurie Anderson's cameo on "Like Pictures Part #2," as she enunciates her words above the song's spooky, soothing ambiance. "Bloom" contrasts happy baby chatter against distorted heartbeats and sinister samples; "Night Traffic" paints an empty urban center at dusk with shifting shapes and '70s jazz percussion and piano. Throughout Drawn from Life, Eno and Schwalm cast a spell of spectral dislocation and foreboding. It's like what dying prostrate in the snow must be like slow, sleepy, beautiful, and chilling.

Artist: Brian Eno + John Cale
P: 1990
Wrong Way Up is a stunning album, from the awesome opener Lay My Love (Eno vocal) with its pulsating rhythm and enigmatic, poetic lyric through the soaring One Word (shared vocal and breath-taking harmonies) to the elegant and atmospheric Cordoba, a ballad reminiscent of Cale’s Paris 1919 album.
Crime In The Desert has an almost West Coast feel with decorous harmonies and delectable doo-doo-doo's while The River (Eno vocal) sounds like classy country music, almost like Jim Reeves! Every track is great: In The Backroom and Empty Frame confirm the artists' lyrical genius while Been There Done That and the catchy but profound Spinning Away are distinguished by Cale's trademark viola. Overall, the sound revolves around imaginative synth textures well within the pop spectrum. Appealing melodies, evocative lyrics and passionate vocals ensure an intoxicating sonic blend. Wrong Way Up is more varied than Songs For Drella (Reed and Cale), more accessible than My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts (Eno and David Byrne) and on a par with the excellent Last Day On Earth, Cale's album with Bob Neuwirth.

Artist: Brian Eno
P: 1978
Eno's theory of the "discreet music" he called ambient was far from the modern chill-out room: the idea was that it should function at very low volumes, unobtrusively coloring the atmosphere of a room. Evolving by tiny gradations, the long pieces of Music For Airports (the first in a series of albums that followed the statement of purpose Discreet Music) defy close attention, but then they're not meant to be listened to consciously; they're meant to serve as a counterpoint to the frantic arcs of travel, or rather to be imagined in that setting.

Artist: Brian Eno
P: 2005
Another Day on Earth is an ambient song cycle that is full of yearning and a mood that Brian Eno has called "brave and resigned." Even in song, Eno is a master of ambience, creating detailed soundworlds and lyrics that don't so much make sense as create a feeling. It's taken him 15 years to create a new vocal album, and the songs span that time, with the welcome reprise of "Under," a devastatingly beautiful hymn of loss and redemption that dates back to 1991's aborted, unreleased My Squelchy Life album. It's turned up before on the Cool World soundtrack and Eno Box II: Vocals. Joining "Under" as one of Eno's most sublime songs is "And Then So Clear," a paean of wasted longing and hope with its cycling rhythm, ethereal guitars, and pitch-shifted vocal harmonies. You can hear Eno's love of gospel music on "This" and "Bottomliners," and can almost picture them in a particularly pensive Baptist church with his double-tracked vocals emulating a solemn choir. But it's not all minor-key reflection. Eno also unleashes a couple of fractured tunes, like "Bonebomb," which is from a project in which he mutated the meter of poets reciting their works. Another Day on Earth is a more personal album from the ambient avatar, a recording of rare and meticulous maturity.

Here the last copy!

Artist: Brian Eno
P: 1974 / 2004
Remastered reissue of this 1974 release.
Eno first emerged as a member of Roxy Music, where the synthesizer player electronically "treated" the band's other instruments, the first indicator that the recording process was itself Eno's chosen instrument. His subsequent career has been one of the most provocative in pop, for not only did he devote himself to such obscure pursuits as "ambient music," but he produced vital albums by David Bowie, Talking Heads, and U2. Eno made a handful of relatively conventional pop albums in the 1970s, and Another Green World ranks with Before and After Science as his most enduring solo work. Another Green World finds Eno mixing distorted guitars (courtesy of Robert Fripp) with a variety of keyboards and exotic rhythms to create a meditative wash of sound that is nonetheless awash with colorful touches. Particularly appealing is the bubbling "St. Elmo's Fire," with a stunning guitar part by Fripp, and "I'll Come Running," in which Eno shows that even a dedicated experimentalist can have a soft heart. From the strange-but-true file, Phil Collins contributes drums and percussion to three tracks. --John Milward