Media Resources/Brian Eno

Musican and producer (Talking Heads, Devo, David Bowie, U2, James and others), installation artist and author.

For more about Eno, see the [EnoWeb] fan site.

Writings

"Some people have difficulty with that song ['And Then So Clear'] because the voice sound is so unusual. [...] What people appreciate is very faithful voice recordings. Nothing else is faithful now. Drums are processed - everything else has a huge range over which it can roam. But the voice is still expected to be a voice. It's rather like... if you made a romantic film, you could stretch colour values and all sorts of things in the film. But if the lead actor were actually a robot, people would find that very unsatisfactory. They want the lead voice to be a real person that they think they can empathize with. Whereas I don't. I'm just as happy if that figure is just as fictional as the rest of the landscape." - [in conversation] with Danny Hillis

A Year With Swollen Appendices consists of a diary Eno kept throughout 1995, plus an assortment of essays and letters. A mishmash of insightful philosophizing, studio experiences, and a few indulgent minutiae, with more than a few pages that could apply here.

"There were at least a dozen different genders there - it was a bit like being in one of those deep-space bars you always see in sci-fi films where creatures from all over the universe with weird body parts and funny ways of talking happen to end up in the same spot." - on the Alternative Miss World competition, where Eno was a judge

"I am interested in these transitions - these moments when a stable duality dissolves into a proliferating and unstable sea of hybrids. What happens at such times is that all sorts of things become possible: there is a tremendous energy release, a great burst of experimentation..." - on "axial thinking"

"Now if a group existed only to make music you'd value everyone's contributions only in musical terms. But bands, like other entities, exist to perpetuate their own existence as a little subculture - and the qualities and talents for that are quite different. Remember that girl at Gwent College whose visual work was not that striking but who almost singlehandedly kept the whole course alive - always getting things going." - 12 March

[Games For Musicians] - improvisational role-playing with David Bowie's band: "You are a musician at "Asteroid," a space-based club (currently in geostationary orbit 180 miles above the surface of the Moon) catering mainly to the shaven, tattooed and androgynous craft-maintenance staff who gather there at weekends..."

[Carnival: A model for culture] - a brief article first published in Whole Earth Review. Could be a statement of principles for Puzzlebox.

Music

There's a number of especially Strange-worthy songs on his early solo albums: "Driving Me Backwards" and "Baby's On Fire" from Here Come The Warm Jets, The Great Pretender from Taking Tiger Mountain.

The Shutov Assembly is a collection of ambient pieces mostly composed for art installations. Some are relatively soothing, but there's a certain coldness to them, and an edge of dissonance that makes several of them rather unsettling - good, brooding Strange ambiance. "Ikebukuro" would make a good soundtrack to the Night Gardens.