15-05-2020, 18:42
Happy Birthday to Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno who was born on this day in 1948 in Suffolk, England. Apparently the St John etc., came later.
As far as I can deduce, he is more or less solely responsible for coining the ‘ambient’ label - he also refers to himself as a non-musician (despite which he seems to be able to find his way around various instruments and not always by batting tennis balls at them which he is known to have done to several pianos in various stages of dismantlement, in college days).
He’s an innovator and an experimenter, all of which has led to revolutionary recording techniques and most unusual ideas, not to mention a few odd offerings along the way. We must have visionaries – the alternative does not bear thinking about, even if what they produce is sometimes beyond comprehension! Anyway – he’s been associated with many many muso’s – Bowie, Robert Fripp, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Ultravox, and a host more.
He is responsible for the 1995 Microsoft sound - quoting from Wiki ...
"The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional," this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said "and it must be 3 1⁄4 seconds long."
I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.
In fact, I made eighty-four pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time". - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Ak5VgyEoc
I like his most recent album with brother Roger, the one he released before that was too strange for my taste. Today I chose to listen to Listen Now, the one and only studio album by a group named 801 which was comprised as follows:
Phil Manzanera (guitars, ex-Roxy Music, Quiet Sun), Brian Eno (keyboards, synthesizers, guitar, vocals and tapes, ex-Roxy Music), Bill MacCormick (bass and vocals, ex-Quiet Sun, Matching Mole), Francis Monkman (Fender Rhodes piano and clavinet, ex-Curved Air), Simon Phillips (drums and rhythm generator) and Lloyd Watson (slide-guitar and vocals).
As far as I can deduce, he is more or less solely responsible for coining the ‘ambient’ label - he also refers to himself as a non-musician (despite which he seems to be able to find his way around various instruments and not always by batting tennis balls at them which he is known to have done to several pianos in various stages of dismantlement, in college days).
He’s an innovator and an experimenter, all of which has led to revolutionary recording techniques and most unusual ideas, not to mention a few odd offerings along the way. We must have visionaries – the alternative does not bear thinking about, even if what they produce is sometimes beyond comprehension! Anyway – he’s been associated with many many muso’s – Bowie, Robert Fripp, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Ultravox, and a host more.
He is responsible for the 1995 Microsoft sound - quoting from Wiki ...
"The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional," this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said "and it must be 3 1⁄4 seconds long."
I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.
In fact, I made eighty-four pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time". - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Ak5VgyEoc
I like his most recent album with brother Roger, the one he released before that was too strange for my taste. Today I chose to listen to Listen Now, the one and only studio album by a group named 801 which was comprised as follows:
Phil Manzanera (guitars, ex-Roxy Music, Quiet Sun), Brian Eno (keyboards, synthesizers, guitar, vocals and tapes, ex-Roxy Music), Bill MacCormick (bass and vocals, ex-Quiet Sun, Matching Mole), Francis Monkman (Fender Rhodes piano and clavinet, ex-Curved Air), Simon Phillips (drums and rhythm generator) and Lloyd Watson (slide-guitar and vocals).
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson