Sorry for the interruption in my semi-regular posting. I had a computer meltdown, and was out of town for a week, and it just all added up.
So I return, with some thoughts on the new album by Brian Eno. Eno! Eno has always been a favorite of mine, almost anything he does I’m interested in hearing, whether he’s the artist or just the producer. Quite a lot of his work is absolutely amazing, this post would be way too long and off-topic if I were to explore it all here. Needless to say, I’m always glad when he has some new work, especially under his own name.
Eno’s work is usually divided categorized in four ways: songs, ambient, collaborator, producer. His career is pretty consistently top-notch, no matter which way he turns. His new album is Small Craft On A Milk Sea, and fits in between his ambient work and his collaborative work. That is, it was done with two other musicians (Leo Abrahams on guitar and Jon Hopkins on keys), so technically it is a collaboration. It is released under Eno’s name though, and comes very close to sounding like his solo ambient albums (esp. the later ones, like Music For Films). The 3 musicians do often lean a bit more towards electronics than technically pure ambient music.
In the end, it serves a similar purpose to ambient: beautiful background music, that moves slowly with minimal amount of engagement for the listener. There are some crunchier moments, some songs with a bit of rhythm in there, but overall, Eno is still doing (one of the many) things he does best: scoring music for movies that don’t exist.
Here’s a sample: