BRIAN ENO 74th BIRTHDAY - some sounds . . . . . .

 BRIAN ENO 

Painting of Brian Eno by A Swapp 3'x4' liquitex on sandtex on canvas 1978

Happy birthday to Brian Eno, born in Melton, Suffolk on this day in 1948.

Acclaimed filmmaker @gary_hustwit has announced the production of his forthcoming film, ENO, the definitive career-spanning documentary about visionary musician, artist and thinker Brian Eno. Rich with access to hundreds of hours of never-before-seen footage, unreleased music from Eno's archive, and visual art, ENO will be released in multiple versions and will employ groundbreaking generative technology in its creation and exhibition.

Hustwit aims to offer a deep dive into subjects that Brian has been notably passionate about, such as sustainability, social equity, and the future of civilization, while centering above all on the nature of creativity. Says Hustwit, “Much of Brian’s career has been about enabling creativity in himself and others, through his role as a producer but also through his collaborations on projects like the Oblique Strategies cards or the music app Bloom. I think of ENO as an art film about creativity, with the output of Brian’s 50-year career as its raw material.”

The film will be released in 2023, more information to come.

“BRIAN ENO AMBIENT KYOTO”

An exhibition of sound and light from Brian Eno has recently been announced. It will be held in Kyoto, Japan from June to August this year.

For more information please visit: http://ambientkyoto.com

ONCE IN A LIFETIME

As with most bona fide classics, nailing origins and correctly portioning out credit starts out tricky then, as the track becomes recognised as one of the most important in musical history, becomes downright impossible. Suddenly, everybody claims a chunk of that impromptu jam turned global wonder…

So the story goes with Once In A Lifetime. Eno had been working with Talking Heads since 1978, producing their previous two albums before embarking on 1980’s Remain in Light. Keen to avoid repetition (including the merely mild commercial success of the previous albums) Eno exerted the influence of African rhythms on the band (the work of Fela Kuti being a favourite at the time) and encouraged ever lengthier jam sessions, after which the band would re-learn and replay their happy accidents as deliberate compositions. 

Such a session created this tight, tuneless, shuffling jam, with very few musical elements other than Tina Weymouth’s famous pulsing bassline, made magnetic through David Byrne’s electrifying vocal.

Relief comes in the form of the chorus, the work of Eno, creating an odd writing credit, with ‘Initial Music’ credited to the band and Eno, and ‘Additional Music’ being the work of Byrne and Eno only.

The story goes that Eno disliked Weymouth’s now legendary bassline, thinking that the first note of the repeating riff was ‘too obvious’. So much so that he re-recorded it himself without the band or that introductory note present. However, Weymouth took exception and re-re-recorded her part with the note back in place… though in a nod to Eno, absent sporadically. Listen closely.

The song reached number 14 on the UK chart though, incredibly, only number 103 in the States. It did, however, go on to power Talking Heads’ famous Stop Making Sense live movie (home to Byrne’s equally famous big suit) and subsequently ’hit’ number 93 in live version form… Same as it ever was…

Advertisement

Oh, BTW: One track that narrowly missed our selection is Eno’s own excellent King’s Lead Hat, from his 1977 pre-Talking Heads album, Before and After Science. King’s Lead Hat being… wait a second… an anagram of… Talking Heads… Huh?…

Daniel Griffiths 

musicradar - 5 tracks you need to hear :: Brian Eno

 

HEROES

Co-written by Eno and - of course - exemplary in album form on the album of the same name.

But let’s thrill to perhaps the best version of the track, Bowie’s live take from the 13 July 1985 Live Aid event. It can be argued that the global, stadium-rocking excess of Live Aid helped steer Bowie’s subsequent efforts into more pomp than circumstance (grinding to the career-derailing Never Let Me Down two years later) but it’s this heroic performance (with Thomas Dolby on synth) in front of 72,000 new fans and with the entire world watching that perhaps marks the height of Bowie’s power.

Daniel Griffiths 

musicradar - 5 tracks you need to hear :: Brian Eno

CELESTE (with Roger Eno)

link to Hinterwald's Brian and Roger Eno live in Greece 2021 here . . . .