Eno, Brian

Artist: Robert Fripp & Brian Eno
P: 2007
LTD 2 CD Edition
2CD Limited Edition offering different playing options. Music plays in segued (disc 1) or individual track form (disc2). The music - a collection of odds-and-ends - was originally released as The Cotswold Gnomes, a download-only collection released via Fripp's Discipline Global Music Live site. The only difference between the 2-CD set and The Cotswold Gnomes is this limited edition CD package comes with a second disc, which reprises the music in its entirety as a flowing piece, rather than a collection of single tracks, which is found on disc one.  Cross Crisis In Lust Storm is a sonic boom over the ambient landscape, with a powerful punch being delivered in Sneering Loop, Tripoli 2020, The Idea Of Decline and Hopeful Timean.
The music ultimately rises above the various controversies and shows - at least here - that the vault which contains unreleased material is full of gold. A majority of the material sounds as if it were recorded around the same time as 2004's "Equatorial Stars" while other pieces are most reminiscent of Eno's 1997 solo disc "The Drop". A big twist in the entire CD is the closing track "Cross Crisis In Lust Storm" which is dominated by harsh metallic drum beats and Fripp's buzzsaw industrial-like guitar leads.
Like their previous collaborations, Fripp and Eno's "Beyond Even" contains music that is way ahead of its time and continues to show the magic these two giants can bring when placed in the same room together.

Artist: Robert Fripp & Brian Eno
P: 2008
This is a work of sheer beauty. The title track is magnificant pastoral of a simple piano progression and Fripp's soaring guitar and is worth the price of admission. The 'second side' is the abstract 'Index of Metals' 20-odd minutes of layered guitar and synth loops under some of the most beautiful axe-work Mr. Fripp has unleashed. The soon-to-be-dubbed "Frippertronics" technique is shown here in all of it's glory, tape saturation and decay...missing in the digital technique adds texture and timbre.

Artist: Robert Fripp & Brian Eno
P: 2014
The subject of many poor quality bootlegs, this concert - one of only a handful undertaken by Fripp & Eno - is routinely described as legendary .
Hearing the tapes in fully restored audio quality, it's easy to understand why it attracts such reverence now and perhaps, why the shows attracted such hostility then. No Roxy Music hits, No King Crimson riffs, just a duo sitting in near darkness with a reel to reel tape recorder, improvising over the pre-recorded loops with a filmed background projection. Replace the reel to reel machine with a couple of laptops/iPads/sequencers and the core of much current live performance from electronica to hip-hop was there some thirty years in advance. At the time, audiences responded to such a glimpse of the future with booing, walkouts and general confusion.
Thanks to the discovery and restoration of the original backing tapes, it was possible - with much painstaking restoration work by Alex Mundy at DGM - to isolate, de-noise and match the live elements from the performance tapes to the studio loops to produce the final recording.
* CDs 1 & 2 feature the complete concert with full audio restoration synched with the original studio backing loops as used in the performance.
* CD3 features the backing loops without overdubs.
* CD3 also features the reversed loop for Wind on Water as used on the Evening Star album.
* CD3 also features Later On, edited from No Pussyfooting & originally the B-side of Eno's first solo single Seven Deadly Finns .

Artist: Robert Fripp & Brian Eno
P: 1973 / 2008
While music of this nature is now considered commonplace, back in 1973, it was quite a different story. When "No Pussyfooting" was initially released, critical reactions were quite mixed. Some didn't know what to think about an albums worth of sustained guitar lines looped through two tapes machines while others found the sounds embedded in the record grooves to be groundbreaking. Over time, the public slowly caught on to the innovative ideas heard in this album and it's now considered to be a timeless classic.
The original album contained two long tracks (one per side of the original LP). The opening track "The Heavenly Music Corporation" was recorded in August 1972 and consists soley of Robert Fripp's guitar being played through two Revox tape machines. The tape machines are manipulated by Brian Eno to create looped phrases and a massive wall of sound. The overall effect is beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Fripp would later perform similar music to this on his own coining the term "Frippertronics" to this guitar/loop technique.
The other track "Swastika Girls" was recorded one year later is more 'composed' in its over all structure. In addition to Robert Fripp's sustained lead guitar and frentic rhythmic guitar loops, Eno adds a busy synthesizer sequence to the music which repeats throughout the entire piece giving it somewhat of a base-structure.
After its initial release on CD in the early '90s, "No Pussyfooting" fell out-of-print and became a sought-after collectors item. Now in 2008, the album is available once again in its most definitive version - a remastered 2-CD edition that includes the complete original album plus the entire album played in reverse and a half-speed version of the opening track "The Heavenly Music Corporation". The reversed and half-speed versions of these tracks give the music a new dimension and offers a completely new listening perspective. While listening to the reversed version of the album, it's almost unnoticeable that the music is actually being played backwards. In fact, it almost sounds like alternate takes played forwards. As for the half-speed nearly 42-minute version of "The Heavenly Music Corporation", the music becomes a deep ambient drone and doesn't sound too different from today's artists who uses low drones as the basis for their music (think of the long-form drone works of Steve Roach or Robert Rich).
All in all, it's great to have this classic album available again. It has definitely been worth the wait. The music is as wonderful now as it was then and shows just how ahead their time Fripp and Eno were and still are. Without any hesitation, this newly remastered 2-disc edition of "No Pussyfooting" is HIGHLY recommended.

Artist: Robert Fripp & Brian Eno
P: 2004
Here's a wonderful new selection of seven mid-size (5-9 minute) tracks of very atmospheric guitar-synthesizer, sampled synth, who-knows-what-studio-wizardry. Fripp proves to be still a very formidable guitarist, playing meltingly beautiful solos over Eno's very advanced and gorgeous electronic backings. Two tracks have notably catchy backbeats, but the others are mostly airy-ambient cloud-musics of beautiful depth and range.

Artist: Harmonia (Roedelius, Rother, Moebius & Eno)
P: 1976 / 2009
Remastered reissue of the legendary 1976 recording, including three previously unreleased tracks*.
Harmonia 76 are: Hans Joachim Roedelius, Michael Rother, Dieter Moebius & Brian Eno.
Michael Rother – e-guitar, keyboards, drum machine
Dieter Moebius – synthesizer, mini harp
Hans-Joachim Roedelius – keyboards
Brian Eno – synthesizer, e-bass, voice, lyrics

Artist: Harald Budd / Brian Eno
P: 1984
This sublime, tranquil recording features 11 haunting ambient tone poems for treated piano. They are crafted from simple chords, arpeggios, or melodies that are frequently trailed by delicate electronic whispers to produce dreamy results. Even though Budd and Eno chose to compose and record in a minimalist style, their gorgeous, moody music evokes so much more, for the reverberating spaces between the notes are just as important as the notes themselves. In an interesting experiment, both "Against the Sky" and "An Echo of Night" explore the same melancholic musical theme in different settings--the former is a sparse piano piece with gentle electronic treatments, the latter is a murky synth work set against a nocturnal outdoor backdrop. (Budd later explored the theme again as the ethereal elegy "Olancha Farewell" on his 1986 solo album, Lovely Thunder.) Beautifully understated, the slow-motion ballet of The Pearl is a piece of striking ambient impressionism that was highly original in its day, well before the myriads of New Age imitators its composers spawned, and it remains fresh and vital two decades later.

Artist: Icebreaker with BJ Cole
P: 2012
Engaged in an exploration between recorded electronic and live acoustic sound, the innovative 12-piece ensemble Icebreaker and renowned pedal steel guitarist BJ Cole present their 'moving and sublime' performance of Brian Eno's Apollo in a definitive and invigorating recording.
Widely regarded as Brian Eno's best and most influential ambient album, Apollo was composed by Brian Eno, Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois for Al Reinert's 1983 documentary on the Apollo space missions, For All Mankind. Eno jokingly referred to it as an attempt to write 'zero gravity country and western', since that was the astronauts' preferred on-board listening and the long reverberations of the pedal steel guitar evoke the vast emptiness of space. Music from the album was also used in the movies 28 Days Later, Traffic, and Trainspotting.
Apollo delivers 52 minutes of transcendently lovely music, mysterious soundscapes, eerie electronics and the sweet lilt of pedal steel guitar, a combination that feels almost as if it were the very sound of the cosmos itself.

Artist: Jean Michel Jarre
P: 2023
‘OXYMOREWORKS’, is a collection of collaborations with other artists, spanning a broad spectrum of electronic genres. The nine track body of work comprises re-works of tracks from Jarres 2022 album ‘OXYMORE’.Each track has been meticulously composed and produced by Jarre in direct collaboration with each featured artist, resulting in a distinctive new version that showcases the collective artistry of both musicians.Speaking about the collection, Jean-Michel Jarre said: “OXYMORE held a special place in my heart, as it embarked on a truly unique sonic journey. With the profound joy of collaborating with fellow artists, much like my previous venture, Electronica, I aimed to foster a fresh perspective on my music. I extended my hand to musicians whose distinct talents I believed would infuse an intriguing dimension into each track. OXYMOREWORKS stands as a testament to the art of collaboration; a vibrant collection of musical dialogues."