BRIAN ENO

'Brian Eno' (pronounced ) (born 'Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno' on 15 May 1948 in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England) is an English electronic musician, music theorist and record producer. As a solo artist, he is probably best known as the father of modern ambient music, though he is also a highly celebrated record producer.
With an art school background and inspiration from minimalism, Eno first came to prominence as the keyboard and synthesizer player of the 1970s glam and art rock band Roxy Music. After leaving the group, Eno recorded four highly idiosyncratic and original rock albums, before turning to more abstract soundscapes on records such as ''Discreet Music'' (1975) and ''Ambient 1/Music for Airports'' (1978). Since then he has made dozens of albums, many with similarly-minded collaborators such as Harold Budd, Cluster, John Cale, David Byrne and Robert Fripp.
Eno also became involved in pop music collaborations beginning in the late 1970s, joining David Bowie on his avant-garde 'Berlin Trilogy' and helping to popularise the band Devo and the punk rock-influenced "No Wave" scene. Eno is also notable for introducing the concepts of chance music to pop and rock and roll.^[1] Eno's production and songwriting credits include critical and commercial successes by The B-52s, The Talking Heads and U2, such as ''Remain in Light'' and ''The Joshua Tree'', as well as work with James, Slowdive and Paul Simon.
Eno has pursued several artistic ventures parallel to his music career, including visual art installations, a regular column in the newspaper ''The Observer'' and, with artist Peter Schmidt, Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards recommending various artistic strategies.

Contents

Education and early musical career

Roxy Music

Solo work

Producing records and other projects

Record production

The Microsoft Sound

Generative music

Other work

Personal life

Discography

Bibliography

Appearances in popular culture

Notes

References

External links

Education and early musical career

Eno was educated at the St. Joseph's College, Birkfield, Ipswich, [1]which was founded by the Saint Jean-Baptiste de La Salle teaching order of brothers, from whom he took part of his name, Ipswich Art School and the Winchester School of Art, graduating from the latter in 1969. While at art school, he developed an interest in using tape recorders as musical instruments, and he experimented with his first (sometimes improvisational) bands. While at Ipswich, his interest in music was encouraged by one of his teachers, the painter Tom Phillips. Phillips recalls devising "Piano Tennis" with Eno in which, after having amassed a number of second-hand pianos they stripped them and lined them up in a hall striking tennis balls at them. It was through Phillips that Eno became involved in Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra. The first released recording on which Eno was involved as a musician is the Deutsche Grammophon edition of Cardew's ''The Great Learning'' (recorded in February 1971), as one of the many voices to be heard in The Scratch Orchestra's recital of Cardew's ''The Great Learning'' Paragraph 7.

Roxy Music

Eno started his professional musical career in London, as a member of the glam/art-rock band Roxy Music, working with them from 1971 to 1973. As a self-described "non-musician," Eno performed from behind the mixing desk at the band's earliest live shows, where his efforts went far beyond the usual sound balancing of the volume levels: he would alter the sounds by processing the other band members' instruments through his VCS3 synthesizer, tape recorders and other electronic devices, frequently singing backing vocals as well. Eno soon joined the rest of Roxy Music on stage, where his flamboyant costumes became a hallmark of the band's visual appeal. Eno left the group after completing the tour to promote their second album, ''For Your Pleasure''. By Eno's later account, his departure was partially result of disagreements with Roxy's lead singer and principal songwriter, Bryan Ferry, and partially due to his growing boredom with the life of a touring rock star.^[2]

Solo work

Eno embarked on a solo career almost immediately. Between 1973 and 1977 he created four influential solo albums of electronically-inflected pop songs – ''Here Come the Warm Jets'', ''Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)'', ''Another Green World'' and ''Before and after Science''. ''Tiger Mountain'' contains the galloping "Third Uncle", one of Eno's best-known songs, due in part to its later being covered by Bauhaus (these four albums are consistently good sellers on CD). Critic Dave Thompson writes that the song is "a near punk attack of riffing guitars and clattering percussion, "Third Uncle" could, in other hands, be a heavy metal anthem, albeit one whose lyrical content would tongue-tie the most slavish air guitarist."^[3]

During this period, Eno also toured with Phil Manzanera in the band 801, a "supergroup" that played more or less mutated selections from albums by Eno, Manzanera, and Quiet Sun, as well as covers of classic songs by The Beatles and The Kinks.
In 1972, Eno developed a tape-delay system first utilized by Eno and Robert Fripp (from King Crimson), coined as 'Frippertronics', and the pair released an album in 1973 called ''Fripp & Eno (No Pussyfooting).'' It is said the technique was borrowed from minimalist composer Terry Riley, whose tape delay feedback system with a pair of Revox tape recorders (a setup Riley used to call the "Time Lag Accumulator") was first used on Riley's album ''Music for The Gift'' in 1963. ^[4] In 1975, Fripp and Eno released a second album, ''Evening Star'', and also played several live shows in Europe.
Eno was a prominent member of the performance art-classical orchestra the Portsmouth Sinfonia - having started playing with them in 1972. In 1973 he produced the orchestra's first album ''The Portsmouth Sinfonia Plays the Popular Classics'' (released in March 1974) and in 1974 he produced the live album ''Hallellujah! The Portsmouth Sinfonia Live At The Royal Albert Hall'' of their infamous May 1974 concert (released in October 1974.) In addition to producing both albums, Eno performed in the orchestra on both recordings - playing the clarinet. Eno also deployed the orchestra's famously dissonant string section on his second solo album ''Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)''. The orchestra at this time included other musicians whose solo work he would subsequently release on his Obscure label including Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman. That year he also composed music for the album ''Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy'', with Kevin Ayers, to accompany the poet June Campbell Cramer.
Eno continued his career by producing a larger number of highly eclectic and increasingly ambient electronic and acoustic albums. He is widely credited with coining the term "ambient music",^[5] low-volume music designed to modify one's perception of a surrounding environment.
His first such work, 1975's ''Discreet Music'', is considered the landmark album of the genre. This was followed by his ''Ambient'' series (''Music for Airports (Ambient 1)'', ''The Plateaux of Mirror (Ambient 2)'', ''Day of Radiance (Ambient 3)'' and ''On Land (Ambient 4)''). Eno was the primary musician on these releases with the exception of "Ambient 3" where the American composer, Laraaji was the sole musician playing the zither and hammered dulcimer.
In 1981, having returned from Ghana and before ''On Land'', he discovered Miles Davis' 1974 ambient jazz dirge "He Loved Him Madly": "''Teo Macero's revolutionary production on that piece seemed to me to have the "spacious" quality I was after, and like "Amarcord", it too became a touchstone to which I returned frequently.''"^[6]
Eno describes himself as a "non-musician" and coined the term "treatments" to describe his modification of the sound of musical instruments, and to separate his role from that of the traditional instrumentalist. His skill at using "The Studio as a Compositional Tool" (the title of an essay by Eno^[7]) led in part to his career as a producer. His methods were recognized at the time (mid-1970s) as unique, so much so that on Genesis's ''The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'', he is credited with 'Enossification' and on John Cale's Island albums as playing the 'Eno'.
Eno started the Obscure Records label in Britain in 1975 to release works by lesser-known composers. The first group of three releases included his own composition, ''Discreet Music'', and the now-famous ''The Sinking of the Titanic'' by Gavin Bryars. The second side of ''Discreet Music'' consisted of several versions of Pachelbel's Canon to which various algorithmic transformations have been applied, rendering it almost unrecognizable. Side 1 consisted of a tape loop system for generating music from relatively sparse input. These tapes had previously been used as backgrounds in some of his collaborations with Robert Fripp, most notably on ''Evening Star''. Only ten Obscure albums were released, including works by John Adams, Michael Nyman, and John Cage. At this time he was also affiliating with artists in the Fluxus movement.
In 1980-81 Eno collaborated with David Byrne of Talking Heads on ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'', which was built around radio broadcasts Eno collected while living in the USA, along with sampling recordings from around the world. He worked with David Bowie as a writer and musician on Bowie's influential 1977-79 'Berlin Trilogy' of albums, ''Low, "Heroes"'' and ''Lodger'', on Bowie's later album ''Outside'', and on the song "I'm Afraid of Americans". In 1980 Eno developed an interest in altered guitar tunings, which led to Guitarchitecture discussions with Chuck Hammer, former Lou Reed guitarist. Eno has also collaborated with John Cale, former member of Velvet Underground, on his trilogy ''Fear'', ''Slow Dazzle'' and ''Helen of Troy'', Robert Wyatt on his ''Shleep'' CD, with Jon Hassell, with the German duo Cluster, with composer Harold Budd and others.
In 1992, Eno released an album featuring heavily syncopated rhythms entitled ''Nerve Net'', with contributions from several old chums including Robert Fripp, Benmont Tench, Robert Quine and John Paul Jones. This album was a last-minute substitution for ''My Squelchy Life'', which featured more pop oriented material, with Eno on vocals. (Several tracks from ''My Squelchy Life'' later appeared on 1993's retrospective box set ''Eno Box II: Vocals''.) Eno also released in 1992 a work entitled ''The Shutov Assembly'', recorded between 1985 and 1990. This album embraces atonality and abandons most conventional concepts of modes, scales and pitch. Much of the music shifts gradually and without discernible focus, and is one of Eno's most varied ambient collections. Conventional instrumentation is eschewed, save for treated keyboards.
During the 1990s, Eno became increasingly interested in self-generating musical systems, the results of which he called generative music. The basic premise of generative music is the blending of several independent musical tracks, of varying sounds, length, and in some cases, silence. When each individual track concludes, it starts again mixing with the other tracks and allowing the listener to hear an almost infinite combination. In one instance of generative music, Eno calculated that it would take almost 10,000 years to hear the entire possibilities of one individual piece. Eno has presented this music in his own, and other artists, art and sound installations, most notably "I Dormienti (The Sleepers)", "Music for the Marble Palace" and "The Quiet Club".
In 2004, Fripp and Eno recorded another ambient collaboration album, ''The Equatorial Stars''.
Eno returned in June 2005 with ''Another Day on Earth'', his first major album since ''Wrong Way Up'' (with John Cale) to prominently feature vocals. The album differs from his 70s solo work as musical production has changed since then, evident in its semi-electronic production.
In early 2006, Eno collaborated with David Byrne, again, for the reissue of ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'' in celebration of the influential album's 25th anniversary. Eight previously unreleased tracks, recorded during the initial sessions in 1980/81, are featured. An unusual interactive marketing strategy that coincided with its re-release, the album’s promotional website features the ability for anyone to officially and legally download the multi-tracks of two songs from the album, "A Secret Life" and "Help Me Somebody". Individuals can then remix and upload new mixes of these tracks to the website so others can listen to and rate them.
In late 2006, Eno released "77 Million Paintings", a program of generative video and music specifically for the PC. As its title suggests, there is a possible combination of 77 million paintings where the viewer will see different combinations of video slides prepared by Eno each time the program is launched. Likewise, the accompanying music is generated by the program so that it's almost certain the listener will never quite hear the same arrangement twice.
Eno is currently working on the soundtrack to Will Wright's upcoming game, ''Spore''.^[8]
In 2007, Eno's music will be featured in a movie adaption of Irvine Welsh's best-selling collection ''.

Producing records and other projects

Record production

From the very beginning of his solo career in 1973, Eno has been much in demand as a producer - though his management now describe him as a "sonic landscaper" rather than a producer. The first album with Eno credited as producer was ''Lucky Leif and the Longships'' by Robert Calvert. Eno's lengthy string of producer credits includes albums for Talking Heads, U2, Devo, Ultravox and James. He also produced part of the 1993 album ''When I Was a Boy'' by Jane Siberry. He won the best producer award at the 1994 and 1996 BRIT Awards.
Despite being a self-professed "non-musician", Eno has contributed to recordings by artists as varied as Nico, Robert Calvert, Genesis, Edikanfo, and Zvuki Mu, in various capacities such as use of his studio/synthesizer/electronic treatments, vocals, guitar, bass guitar, and even just as being 'Eno'. In 1984, he composed and performed the "Prophecy Theme" for the David Lynch film ''Dune'', the rest of the soundtrack was performed by the group Toto. Eno produced performance artist Laurie Anderson's ''Bright Red'' album, and also composed for it. The work is avant-garde spoken word with haunting and magnifying sounds. Eno played on David Byrne's musical score for ''The Catherine Wheel'', a project commissioned by Twyla Tharp to accompany her Broadway dance project of the same name.
Eno co-produced ''The Unforgettable Fire'' (1984), ''The Joshua Tree'' (1987), ''Achtung Baby'' (1991), and ''All That You Can't Leave Behind'' (2000) for U2 with his frequent collaborator Daniel Lanois, and produced 1993's ''Zooropa'' for the band alone. In 1995, U2 and Eno joined forces to create the album ''Original Soundtracks 1'' under the group name Passengers. Notable songs from ''OST1'' include "Your Blue Room" and "Miss Sarajevo".
Eno played on the 1986 album ''Measure for Measure'' by Australian band Icehouse. In 1993, he remixed two tracks for Depeche Mode, ''I Feel You'' and ''In Your Room'', both single releases from the album ''Songs of Faith and Devotion''.
In 2006, he produced Paul Simon's album ''Surprise''. As of 2007 he is producing what will be U2's 15th studio album, along with Daniel Lanois, in Morocco, as well as Coldplay's fourth studio album ''Prospekt''.

The Microsoft Sound

In 1994 Eno was approached by Mark Malamud and Erik Gavriluk, senior designers at Microsoft on the Cairo project. The result was the six-second start-up sound for the Windows 95 operating system, commonly called ''The Microsoft Sound''. From an interview with the ''San Francisco Chronicle'':

Generative music

He collaborated on the development of SSEYO's Koan generative music system (created by Pete Cole and Tim Cole of intermorphic), which he used to create his hybrid album ''Generative Music 1''.
Brian Eno, 1996:
Using the pseudonym CSJ Bofop, 1996:

Other work

Eno has also been active in other artistic genres, producing videos for gallery display and collaborating with visual artists in other endeavours. One is the set of "Oblique Strategies" cards that he and artist Peter Schmidt produced in the mid-70s. Described as "100 Worthwhile Dilemmas" and intended as guides to shaking up the mind in the process of producing artistic endeavors. Another was his collaboration with artist Russell Mills on the book ''More Dark Than Shark''. He was also the provider of music for Robert Sheckley's ''In the Land of Clear Colours,'' a narrated story with music originally published by a small art gallery in Spain.
In 1996, Brian Eno and others started the Long Now Foundation to educate the public into thinking about the very long term future of society. He is also a columnist for the British newspaper ''The Observer''.
In 2002 a song called "An Ending (Ascent)", which he wrote and performed for the NASA film ''Apollo'', was used in the film ''28 Days Later''.
In 2003, he appeared on a Channel 4 discussion about the Iraq war with a top military spokesman. Eno was highly critical of the war. In 2005, he spoke at an anti-war demonstration in Hyde Park, London. In March 2006, he spoke at an anti-war demonstration at Trafalgar Square. He noted that 2 billion people on this planet do not have clean drinking water, and that water could have been supplied to them for about one-fifth of the cost of the Iraq war.
2006 saw the release of "77 Million Paintings", a software/DVD/booklet package which provides a permanent version of the kind of visual and sound art which Eno has featured in his installation pieces.
In 2007, he appeared playing keyboards in ''Voila'', Belinda Carlisle's solo album sung entirely in French.

Personal life

In March 1967, then aged 18, Eno married Sarah Grenville. Their daughter Hannah was born in July 1967.
It has been frequently claimed that Eno dated British actress Julie Christie in the late 1970s and that they conceived a child together; this is entirely fictitious, and was based solely on the fact that they were once seen sharing a taxi.
In January 1988, Eno married his manager, Anthea Norman-Taylor. They have two daughters, Irial and Darla.
He is the brother of fellow ambient musician and composer Roger Eno. The brothers collaborated with Canadian composer Daniel Lanois on the soundtrack album Apollo.

Discography

Main articles: Brian Eno discography

Bibliography

★ 1986: ''More Dark than Shark'' with Russell Mills

★ 1996: ''A Year with Swollen Appendices''

★ 2000: ''I Dormienti'' with Mimmo Paladino. Limited edition of 2000.

Appearances in popular culture

★ Brian Eno was the inspiration for the character Brent Mini in the 1981 novel ''Valis''. The author of the book, Philip K. Dick, preferred classical music and was an aficionado of Eno's ''Discreet Music'' album. Another literary semi-personification of Brian is the keyboardist character Eno Barber, in Salman Rushdie's ''The Ground Beneath Her Feet''.

★ The character of I-No (pronounced the same as "Eno"), in the videogame series ''Guilty Gear'' is most likely a reference to Brian Eno. This is one of dozens of music references in the series.

★ The music for the game ''Fallout'' was inspired by Eno's music (especially ''Music for Films'').

★ He once guest appeared as Father Brian Eno on the television sitcom ''Father Ted''.

★ The song "Lay My Love" with John Cale was on the soundtrack ''More Music From Northern Exposure (1990-95)'' released in 1994.

★ The song "By This River," from the 1977 album ''Before and After Science'', is featured in Alfonso Cuaron's 2001 film ''Y tu mamá también''.

★ "Two Rapid Formations" and "Inland Sea" are featured in two ''Miami Vice'' episodes

★ 1/1 from ''Music for Airports'' is featured in the film ''9½ Weeks''.

★ The Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition mobile phone features exclusive music composed by Eno.^[9] Between January 8 2007 and February 12 2007, ten units of Nokia 8800 Sirocco Brian Eno Signature Edition mobile phones, individually numbered and engraved with Eno's signature were auctioned off. All proceeds went to two charities chosen by Eno: the Keiskamma Aids Treatment program and The World Land Trust.^[10]

★ The Swarovski crystal museum (or in German, Swarovski Kristallwelten) in the small town of Wattens, near Innsbruck in Austria, has its own exhibition dedicated to Brian Eno. One walks in, and watches a screen with vivid flashing lights, and a recording of Brian's voice plays, proclaiming peaceful and calming sentences.

★ Eno's song "By This River" was featured in Nanni Moretti's film ''La Stanza del Figlio (The Son's Room)'' and Alfonso Cuarón's ''Y tu mamá tambien'' in 2001.

★ The opening scene of the first episode of ''Saxondale'' had the main character Tommy Saxondale state "I love the way Eno can paint a picture with music".

★ Oliver Stone's ''Wall Street'' features the songs "America is Waiting" and "Mea Culpa" from ''My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (album)'' (with David Byrne).

Notes

1. Prendergast, Mark ''The Ambient Century'', Bloomsbury UK, 2000. ISBN 0747542139
2. "Eno Left Roxy Music to do His Laundry"
3. All Music review
4. http://www.loopers-delight.com/history/Loophist.html
5. Prendergast, ''The Ambient Century'': p.93
6. ''Ambient 4: On Land'' 1986 release notes
7. "Pro Session - The Studio as Compositional Tool"
8. "Playing with Time"
9. Nokia Press Release (4 September 2006). "Winds of change"
10. Nokia Press Release (20 December 2006. "Nokia and Brian Eno pair up for two great causes" ; "Nokia 8800 Sirocco Brian Eno Signature Edition Charity Auction"

the song "By This River" was covered by San Diego band 3 Mile Pilot

References

★ Bracewell, Michael ''Roxy Music: Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Art, Ideas, and Fashion'' (Da Capo Press, 2005) ISBN 0-306-81400-5

★ Eno, Brian, Russell Mills and Rick Poynor ''More Dark Than Shark'' (Faber & Faber, 1986, out of print)

★ Eno, Brian ''A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary'' (Faber & Faber, 1996) ISBN 0-571-17995-9

★ Tamm, Eric ''Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound'' (Da Capo Press, 1995, first published 1989) ISBN 0-306-80649-5 (Full text available at author's website [2])

★ Dayal, 33 1/3 Brian Eno's ''Another Green World'' (Continuum 2007) ISBN 978-08264-2786-1

External links

★ BBC Collective video interview about 77 Million Paintings

★ EnoWeb (unofficial website)

★ The Eno newsletter

★

★ Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound by Eric Tamm (free book) zip pdf

★ Interview with Brian Eno from The Guardian, May 19 2006

★ Interview with Brian Eno from San Francisco Chronicle, June 2 1996

★ Audio of interview with Brian Eno from KPFA, February 2, 1980