Latest Release

- 1 DEC 2023
- 5 Songs
- Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks · 1983
- Ambient 1: Music for Airports · 1978
- Small Craft On A Milk Sea · 2010
- Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror · 1980
- Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks · 1983
- Another Green World · 1975
- The Pearl · 1984
- Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks · 1983
- Ambient 1: Music for Airports · 1978
- Ambient 1: Music for Airports · 1978
Essential Albums
- 1984
- Though Brian Eno’s Ambient series grew out of a simple purpose—to improve upon the canned music that Eno had endured while travelling through airports—its innovative approach would go on to affect film scoring, electronic music and pop music in general. For all their evocative power, these four long tracks are remarkably simple in construction. Each is centred on samples of wordless singing and acoustic piano, with rumbling assistance from a synthesiser. Eno wasn't the first to work with tape loops and abstract compositions; avant-garde composers had been doing it for decades. But his Ambient works felt remarkably different. This doesn’t sound like music conceived by fringe musicians; it sounds like a transmission from an unknown future. In many ways, it was—the techniques Eno introduced on this album would be so thoroughly adopted by DJs and film composers that by the '90s, these peculiar sounds were relatively familiar to even casual music listeners. But despite its expansive influence, Ambient 1 retains its unique ability to seduce and frighten new listeners.
- Brian Eno’s first two solo albums, 1974’s Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy, weren’t too far from what he had been playing in Roxy Music just a couple years prior: catchy, glam-infused art rock from which unexpected details (a nonsense phrase, an eerie swatch of backmasking) sprouted as colourfully as the feathers in Eno’s boa. But by the next year’s Another Green World, the properties of his universe had gotten stranger. Straight lines turned soft and bendy; a coppery tarnish crept across his music’s once-bright hues. The shift is right there in the opening “Sky Saw”, whose murky swirl suggests a kind of aquatic dub funk, and “Over Fire Island”, in which Percy Jones’ fretless bass bubbles like magma beneath Eno’s dolefully drizzling synth lead. Eno had toyed with improvisation and stream-of-consciousness lyrics previously, but Another Green World marked a step further into the unknown: It was written and recorded on the spot, and he used his Oblique Strategies cards—an aleatory, free-form brainstorming aid—to point him toward new sounds, methods and tone colours. His invention of ambient music was still a few years away, but you can hear him edging toward it in the contemplative rhythms of “In Dark Trees”—which anticipates the globe-trotting explorations of 1981’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, with David Byrne—and “Sombre Reptiles”, featuring a slinky sound Eno termed “snake guitar”. But for all his experimenting, he didn’t ignore his pop instincts: “St. Elmo’s Fire” is as immediate and indelible a tune as he’s ever written, right down to its vividly surrealistic lyrics.
- Brian Eno’s love for manipulating sound and creating "accidents" between musicians worked marvelously to his advantage on his solo debut. He gathered 16 seemingly incompatible artists (from bands like Roxy Music, Hawkwind and King Crimson) and directed them with dancing moves and nonsensical lyrics to subliminally guide their playing. Songs like “Baby’s on Fire” and “Needles in the Camel’s Eye”—where brilliant ‘60s pop harmonies, surf guitars and futuristic sounds blend—are glam-pop gold, sounding hugely catchy despite their improvisational, free-associative beginnings.
Artist Playlists
- A career guided by the expressive potential of electronic sound.
- The glam-star-turned-studio-innovator transformed modern music.
- Hear how the musical maverick helped other icons change the game.
- The architect of ambient leaves his mark all over modern music.
- Lean back and relax with some of their mellowest cuts.
- An innovative art-popper who plays well with others.
Compilations
Appears On
- Lee "Scratch" Perry
- New Composers
- Passengers
More To Hear
- Conversation with the pioneering musician.
- Annie puts together a stress-relieving playlist.
- On memories, creative tricks, and working with David Byrne.
- Jehnny sits down with the iconic artist and producer.
More To See
About Brian Eno
Over the course of his prolific and varied career, legendary British musician and producer Brian Eno played in the iconic glam-rock band Roxy Music, pioneered the genre known as ambient music, and produced albums for Talking Heads, U2 and Coldplay, among others. • Born in Suffolk, Eno attended art college and played in experimental music troupes before cofounding the glam-rock band Roxy Music in 1971. • Eno played synths on the first two Roxy albums—1972’s Roxy Music and 1973’s For Your Pleasure—before leaving the group over creative differences. • Beginning with 1974’s Here Come the Warm Jets, Eno released a string of art-rock solo albums. In the latter half of the decade, he came to embrace ambient music, as heard on 1975’s Discreet Music and 1978’s Music for Films. • Turning to production, Eno worked with NYC art-rockers Talking Heads on a trio of acclaimed albums: 1978’s More Songs About Buildings and Food, 1979’s Fear of Music and 1980’s Remain In Light. • He teamed up with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne on the 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, groundbreaking for its use of samples and found sounds. • Although he did not earn production credits, he played a key role in crafting the three albums that make up David Bowie’s “Berlin trilogy”: Low (1977), ”Heroes(1977) and Lodger (1979). • Eno has production credits on more than a half dozen U2 albums, including The Unforgettable Fire (1984), The Joshua Tree (1987), Achtung Baby (1991) and All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000). • He’s responsible for the six-second startup sound that accompanied the Windows 95 operating system. • Another band closely associated with Eno is Coldplay. He coproduced their albums Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008) and Mylo Xyloto (2011). • His 2017 album Reflection was available in a “generative” app format offering listeners an “endlessly changing” version of the music.
- HOMETOWN
- Melton, Suffolk, England
- BORN
- 15 May 1948