Tag: Brian Eno

📓 Stages of a Revolution

Speaking about the inspiration to the title for his album , Brian Eno talks about Alexei Yurchak’s book Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More and the two stages of revolutions:

I think the idea came from this book that revolutions always happen in two stages. The first stage is when everyone realizes something is wrong. So that’s where we’ve been now for a while, with the exception of a few ostrich holdouts. The second stage is when everyone realizes that everyone else realizes it as well. That’s the moment I think we’re heading towards. When the thing goes from being a liquid to a solid. Suddenly it’s a phase change.

Liked How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports by Reverb MachineReverb Machine (reverbmachine.com)

In 1978, Brian Eno released Ambient 1: Music for Airports, a landmark album in ambient and electronic music. Although it wasn’t the first ambient album by any means, it was the first album explicitly released as an ‘ambient music album’. The album was essentially a continuation of Eno’s experiments with the tape machine as a compositional tool, as well as his exploration of generative music. In this article I’ll discuss how the music was composed, break down and recreate the tracks 2/1 and 1/2, and hopefully give you some ideas about how to adopt this approach yourself.

Liked Brian Eno Launches His Own Radio Station with Hundreds of Unreleased Tracks: Hear Two Programs (Open Culture)

Why call it “The Lighthouse”? “I like the idea of a sort of beacon calling you, telling you something, warning you perhaps, announcing something.” He also credits a friend who told him his unreleased music is like ships lost at sea. The lighthouse “is calling in some of those lost ships.”

Listened Roger Eno And Brian Eno – Mixing Colours from Discogs

Label: Deutsche Grammophon – 483 7772 ‱ Format: 2x, Vinyl LP, Album ‱ Country: Europe ‱ Genre: Electronic ‱ Style: Ambient, Modern Classical

In an interview with Bob Boilen, Roger and Brian Eno discuss the collaborative process of creating their new album, with Roger the musician and Brian the artist. Colin Walker suggest that:

The best way I can describe the album is part neo-classical, part soundscape, part lullaby

In explaining the album and art in general, they explain that the purpose is to present alternatives, other worlds to be in. Brian Eno adds to this suggesting a desire for strange and familiar sensations. This correlates with something that Ezra Koenig suggests too.

Place between Prop and Aphex Twin

Replied to https://daily-ink.davidtruss.com/new-beginnings-sprout-from-the-old/ (daily-ink.davidtruss.com)

It reminds me that we don’t always have to begin anew. We don’t always have to throw everything out and start fresh. We can build from a foundation we already have, and we can use existing resources to help us. Sometimes when we are looking to make changes, to make things better, we forget the accomplishments that got us where we are now.

David, the notion of new ideas growing out of the past ideas rotting away reminds me of the work of Brian Eno and the notion of scenius:

Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.

In an interview on musical interpretations, Eno suggests:

I always think that whenever you listen to a piece of music, what you are actually doing is hearing the latest sentence in a very long story you’ve been listening to—all the pieces of music you’ve ever heard. So what you are listening to are tiny differences, tiny innovations. Something new is added, something you’ve grown used to is omitted, something you thought you were familiar with sounds different.

While in a conversation with Daniel Lanois, he argues that ‘beautiful things grow out of shit’:

If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted—they have these wonderful things in their head but and you’re not one of them, you’re just sort of a normal person, you could never do anything like that—then you live a different kind of life. You could have another kind of life where you could say, well, I know that things come from nothing very much, start from unpromising beginnings, and I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something.

Austin Kleon sums this up as follows:

Genius is an egosystem, scenius is an ecosystem.

Listened Brian Eno’s luminous songs from ABC Radio

When Brian Eno came to Australia for the first time ever, back in 2009, Zan was lucky enough to sit down with him and invite him to curate triple j. He was in the country for Luminous, a festival that would become Vivid in Sydney. He had created light installations, and programmed some of his favourite musical acts to come and play. Over five songs, Eno shared his passion for these artists, and some of the theories and thinking that have made him one of the great modern music philosophers and creatives. This is a rare treat to get into the mind of a genius, across five songs.

Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 – “Think Africa”

Battles – “Atlas”

Jon Hopkins – “Light Through the Veins”

Reggie Watts – “Out Of Control”

Ladytron – “Predict The Day”

In this interview from 2009, Zan Rowe speaks with Brian Eno about songs/artists associated with with the Luminous Festival. Some of the points that stood out were his idea of listening as the act of connecting:

When I am listening to someone’s work, I think ‘that is a little bit like’ or ‘there is something in here that might be enriched by hearing some else’s music’

The importance of having strong views:

That’s quite good doesn’t help anyone … if you take a strong position other people can orientate themselves around it. They can see what they feel in relation to your position … Having strong opinions forces others to take positions as well.

Talking about Jon Hopkins, Eno questions how many people are actually synthesiser players.

Most synthesisier players are keyboard players with a few sounds

For me someone like Chris Beckstrom represents this difference.

Eno also wonders about the difference between recorded and performed music.

I often think that recorded music should have a different name. We do not think of cinema as theatre … Music form is different to what composers did centuries ago.

Listened

Brian Eno discusses the body and character of speakers and instruments on space and sound. In the process he summarises his work with generative music. The conversation soon moves to politics, capitalism, neo-liberalism and taking action.

You cannot do technology now without a political position.

Eno ends by sharing an interesting idea of a developing a backwards calendar to plan your life based on how long you think you have left to live.

via Austin Kleon

Quoted A Conversation with Brian Eno – Believer Magazine (Believer Magazine)

I always think that whenever you listen to a piece of music, what you are actually doing is hearing the latest sentence in a very long story you’ve been listening to—all the pieces of music you’ve ever heard. So what you are listening to are tiny differences, tiny innovations. Something new is added, something you’ve grown used to is omitted, something you thought you were familiar with sounds different.

Brian Eno reflects on sound and interpretation. He suggests that instead it is a case of continual forgetting and remembering.

I always think that whenever you listen to a piece of music, what you are actually doing is hearing the latest sentence in a very long story you’ve been listening to—all the pieces of music you’ve ever heard. So what you are listening to are tiny differences, tiny innovations. Something new is added, something you’ve grown used to is omitted, something you thought you were familiar with sounds different.source

Watched

Beautiful things grow out of shit. Nobody ever believes that. Everyone thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head—they somehow appeared there and formed in his head—and all he had to do was write them down and they would be manifest to the world. But what I think is so interesting, and would really be a lesson that everybody should learn, is that things come out of nothing. Things evolve out of nothing. You know, the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest. And then the most promising seed in the wrong situation turns into nothing. I think this would be important for people to understand, because it gives people confidence in their own lives to know that’s how things work.

If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted—they have these wonderful things in their head but and you’re not one of them, you’re just sort of a normal person, you could never do anything like that—then you live a different kind of life. You could have another kind of life where you could say, well, I know that things come from nothing very much, start from unpromising beginnings, and I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something.

via Austin Kleon