Brian Eno - C or D?

Found myself spinning the new one often and on repeat so I did indeed go for the app. The price point is crazy at first glance but I was thinking about how they might have reached that figure:

• Apple takes 30% off the top
• Chilvers has probably never made decent money off any of the previous Eno apps
• Since it's a composition through Warp, they might want streaming licence money
• It's a prestige 'art object' with pricing that conveys that
• They will sell probably sell one of these for every 10,000 CDs/MP3 they sell even though technically it's infinitely longer than one of those
• It'll probably only be updated to keep it running on newer OSes, so there won't be any opportunity to derive any more revenue from this once it's bought

Whoops forgot another one:

• Warp probably insisted on a high price point so that CD/MP3 sales weren't cannibalized

Regarding Eno's diagrams on the back of Music for Airports, I wonder if he was familiar with the computer algorithm-generated drawings of artist Manfred Mohr? Particularly these two from 1970:

http://www.emohr.com/paris-1971/catalog/Lpage35.jpg
http://www.emohr.com/paris-1971/catalog/Lpage34.jpg

Huh. I've never heard of that guy, but he and Eno seem like they would be best buddies.

Wow, yeah, thanks for pointing Mohr out. I can't see that Eno ever mentioned him but those diagrams are really similar

Played "Here Come the Warm Jets" at a benefit show I was helping to DJ last night
sad lol

There was a Guardian interview with me earlier this week which had as its headline "We've been in decline for 40 years - Trump is a chance to rethink". I didn’t use those words in that way (as reading the article would make clear), and they've been taken (particularly by some American websites) to suggest that I support Trump. Anybody familiar with my views will know that this is not true.

So: may I make something absolutely clear: I think Donald Trump is a complete disaster. And Brexit is a disaster too. That said, what I think is an even greater disaster is that we in the US and the UK - and increasingly the rest of the world - live inside political systems that can produce absurd results like these.

We now see political careers built upon lies and deceit and encouraged by openly biased media organisations, more concerned about revenue and ratings than giving the public real information. It’s this whole system that has to change: not just who leads the government but something deeper and more fundamental in our political and social processes. Democracy assumes an informed public: it doesn't work if the media are corrupt. Changing the faces at the top doesn’t alter anything if the whole machinery beneath them stays the same - the rich become the super-rich, the middle class stagnates and the poor get poorer.

My hope - the only hope really - is that Trump in office will reveal himself for what he really is, and that the public will roundly and unequivocally reject him and everything he stands for - his terrible policies, his jingoism, his arrogance, his childishness, his lies, his prejudices and his small-mindedness. In rejecting Trump we’ll also start to take down the whole malignant media-political structure that so lovingly nurtured him.

As I've written before, I believe that Trump can turn out to be not the beginning of a long decline, but the end of one - the turning point. For 40 years we've been sliding into a deepening pit of inequality, fear-driven nationalism and conservatism, and mostly not noticing. Trump’s presidency could inadvertently change that - not because he's going to do anything right but because his election is energising people to come to grips with the fact that their political system is fundamentally broken and it's time to do something about it. The demonstrations that happened last weekend are a reflection of this new mood.

It would have been better if we hadn't got to this point, but that's where we are. My feeling is that a Clinton presidency (or even a 'remain' vote in Britain), though more comfortable in the short term, wouldn't have dealt with the fundamental problems that beset both our political systems. Trump has proven beyond doubt that the system is broken, so let's fix it.

– Brian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQOERIXmexU

I've been listening to Reflection nearly every night for the past month; might have to splurge on the app eventually.

Heard this on the Sonic Realities podcast the other week. If you had told me who it was by, I would never have expected it to sound like this. Just totally joyful.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-INeMspNSQ0

You'd never heard that before? I envy your first exposure.

reflection app repriced to $30.99. I am tempted, even though I found the album version didn't quite connect with me & I'm not sure why; but the concept of an app version of an album is way overdue for him so I feel like I shouldn't neglect it

I didn't find much in 'Bloom' to hold me; while I liked the implementation of variable-length loops capturing the melodies you'd play with the touchscreen, the sounds weren't quite there. although if you hooked it up to a good sound system, there was some nice low end going on that you couldn't hear through an iphone speaker. The music for 'Scape' ended up being my favorite Eno album since 'Shutov Assembly', I've made myself more than a few playlists of scenes in that app, and I love the degree of low end when you play it back through a good sound system. I am fighting the temptation to get a good digital-out capture of 'Scape' so I can play back WAVs more easily on other devices / systems -- certainly there are a variety of captures already on youtube -- but there is something challenging about it being subtly different every time that makes me think that I shouldn't even let myself do that.

haven't listened to the other apps; Chilvers has been busy making a few others as well, all much more reasonably priced

I wish there were some better interviews with him on the subject of his apps, but as long as I'm hanging out and guessing on a message board because I am a huge fan of the subject

Things like 'Bloom' seemed to be all real time synthesis engines; very simple sounds, but with a lot of variability, with notes being triggered instantly in response to touching the touchscreen. But it also leads to a bit of a restricted range of fairly simple sounds. 'Scape' has a lot of guitars & bass lines & things that sound like his older DX7 patches -- so those are obviously not a real time synth engine, but pre-recorded ingredients, loops or files of varying lengths that you turn on and off by dragging those silly icons onto the screen. The background shimmering modal drone I suspect is a synth engine and not pre-recorded, but overall in 'Scape' there's less control over how you trigger these sounds. but the wider variety of them makes for a much more engaging listen and it just sounds a lot more instantly like one of his albums

Listening to the mp3 captures of his 'Generative Music' release -- very un-Eno-like sounds -- sounds like elementary MIDI -- so I'm guessing that was truly a 100% real-time synth engine with no built in DSP, he committed himself to the idea of the project and did without all of his hallmark studio treatments -- he has come a long way since that release

don't know if it'd be possible but i'd LOVE an app version of discreet music, even if the generative nature of it would be less pronounced than scape, bloom, or trope. even minimal variation (and without the fades) would be preferable to just putting the 1975 recording on repeat. i'd rather spend 30 bucks on that than this newer thing.

Often play this 57 minute Eno loop, which is really nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alo3KFRfLvE

Xpost haha yes I thought it was something of an obscurity until I saw the YouTube had nearly half a million views!

This is an obscurity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJas7Q_yXXY

dharmabumguy11 year ago
I like this version better. his voice has that beachy vibe.

baaaaaaarrrrrffffff
that song is so good

my go-to ambient eno is the video version of thursday afternoon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Riz6AKeBpa0

hah that was in "The Beach" (the DiCaprio movie) and I was like....something isn't right here...

wow how is it I was totally unaware of Seven Deadly Finns before today

it is so good! the yodels!

easiest way to find that on vinyl is on this Editions EG comp which is usually around for cheap:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-First-Edition/master/77118

Xpost Know this one?

https://youtu.be/03-EJBnzW1A

How about the 303 live version of Third Uncle? That's blistering af

Lol. 801!

Lol woops, thanks for the correction

think you guys mean the 311 version

I think I have heard that Manzanera album yeah. never liked the 801 record tbh

but I literally didn't know that single existed

Did you know this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5RYptkzbjY

Or this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhwNXae5_vU

Or this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEQBDyTjF7U

Or this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TghCiYstf6c

I love Eno deep cuts.

Or this surprise (Sub Pop Americana with Eno on synths and vox!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr5EHyGBsgg

dunno about that v last one but the others yes. I just thought I'd heard all the early/glam stuff

I like that walkabouts song a lot, because it is one of the very rare songs that actually sounds like something Eno would have recorded circa another green world.

ooh did not know the details on that Walkabouts song

"Belldog" is killer

Outic have u heard the BBC session bootleg with "Fever"? That's great too.

studio version of "Miss Shapiro" on Manzanera's Diamond Head is IMO far superior to the 801 Live version, tons of Eno vocals.

Robert Wyatt's "Heaps Of Sheeps" probably fits into this as well

did not know "the lion sleeps tonight" a la eno existed
it sounds kinda sped up? also pretty unremarkable aside from sounding like it's being sung by muppets

I'm guessing that the version of "Chemistry" that appears on the other side of a promo 7" with Kate Bush's "Be Kind To My Mistakes" (both from the film Castaway) is just the same as the track on the Jon Hassell collaboration (Fourth World Vol 1)? A bit of YouTubing suggests so, so I can't add it to the stack of deep cuts in here ;) (Hassell not credited on that single).

huh, somehow I've never heard "You Don't Miss Your Water," thread revive delivers

more bootlegs:

http://shardsofbeauty.blogspot.com/2011/07/eno-schwalm-czukay-cool-collaboration.html

http://shardsofbeauty.blogspot.com/2011/07/eno-schwalm-lanzarote-2001-another.html

Gawd, that Walkabouts track is glorious, thank you.

Xpost no but that Belldog one is a belter

man I haven't heard this either!

https://www.discogs.com/Eno-Sinfield-Robert-Sheckleys-In-A-Land-Of-Clear-Colors/master/263411

wau wtf @ that one

Still a weird moment in Eno:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xm9x5i_lean-on-me-michael-stipe-stephen-colbert-brian-eno_music

Josh have you heard that crazy Eno/Sinfield record? not on Youtube from what I can see...

I have a copy of it, iirc. Lotta spoken word?

yeah I'd guess that it's all narration, was more curious about Eno's musical contributions in the background

I think it's mostly just weird talking with the occasional bed of droney ambient stuff. Been a while.

Tape Op just published a good interview with Brian Eno done back in 2011. I thought it was worth a listen.

https://www.podcastchart.com/podcasts/tape-op-podcast/episodes/episode-1-brian-eno/pop

I've been listening to Reflection nearly every night for the past month

In an interview Eno mentions that the app takes into account time of day, time of year, and temperature as variables in the composition, which I don't think has been mentioned anywhere else - so you might want to throw it on in the morning