Brian Eno Boutique Releases: S/D

otherwise though I think you're cutting the man a great deal of slack for this series. everything about them seemed to be chasing his audience away: the CDR format (an absurdly pointed decision, when even as a micro-release he could have pressed & moved 500 - 1000 copies), the xerox packaging that made the cover of The Drop seem deluxe, and then, mainly, the music itself.

White Cube is perfectly pleasant, compressed & extended field recordings that make me want to listen to Thomas Koner. Lightness is two extended textures using the FM synthesis patches he documented on Shutov Assembly; worth hearing but not immersive, it's glossy, it doesn't float or connect or live or anything. I Dormienti recycles the Neroli scale and over the top glops a few more DX7 patches & some utterly digitally mauled vocal sounds, i.e. Eno discovers Timestretching for 40 long, long minutes.

I gave up investing in the series at that point, maybe I'd be kinder if I downloaded things for free. I'm up for trading to hear the later stuff now that Another Day On Earth has put me in a good mood. But everything about this series is framed in a way to discourage too much critical attention, these clearly aren't meant to be put on the same shelf with the earlier works.

I gave up investing in the series at that point, maybe I'd be kinder if I downloaded things for free.

Well, to start with, that's what I did. I'll prob. consider buying Bell Studies, tho'.

you're cutting the man a great deal of slack for this series...these clearly aren't meant to be put on the same shelf with the earlier works.

I'm not really arguing they should — as I said, I think he himself considers them research more than anything. I just think that he was clearly doing something of worth — they're like worktapes.

Are you familiar with the Curiosities or Generative stuff?

Bell Studies is expensive but the digipak is beautiful and the interview & essays included are a huge part of the point of the work.

I downloaded the Curiosities sample mp3s from Enoshop and decided to pass on the purchase. You make the Generative stuff sound great though, I definitely rate Shutov Assembly and wouldn't mind something like that...

One of the things I enjoyed about Bell Studies was that it was him using one sound again (a la Neroli)—which can be horribly boring—but in his case, really exploring it — melodically, timbrally, atmospherically, etc. It seemed a good contrast to the moving picture aspect of Thursday Afternoon and Shutov. The better parts of Generative were a little like that, too.

inneresting

generative pieces do reinvest recordings with a sense of 'live music'. I remember one Eno interview where he was touring with one installation, setting it up with the loops running, and he and his assistant looked up stunned at one moment, two or three melodic fragments had synced up into a country and western tune out of nowhere, they'd been hearing the piece for weeks yet that was the first time that had happened.

any video game platform gives people the platform for generative music -- the layered mixing bus, the random number generators... no one's doing it yet, but they will. someone should re-release Generative for PS2!

the point is, the video game format is so unhinged & rife with random possibilities... I've been looking at the delivery format that developers work with when delivering their content, and it's all _submixes_. increasingly the people delivering their sounds / music / etc are not thinking in terms of definitive stereo/surround mixes because everything's got to be flexibly, independently mixed within the world of the game.

right now the rules are strict but the work method & process of the video game industries are already in place; we're rife for an aesthetic breakthrough but it hasn't happened yet

can't find the precise interview I mentioned above, but the first generative talk is online... http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/eno1.html

I don't know, maybe those games are already out there, aside from Katamari I haven't really been paying attention.

wincing at my chatty, dismissive comments upthread, it's all born out of silly respect of course

go immediately to Composition Controls, especially Pitch Mapping > Musical Scale

gotta take back my comments upthread on Lightness, I keep coming back to this one. the textures don't sound glassy anymore, they sound crystaline. same FM textures as used on Shutov Assembly, but for two half hour long installation pieces -- I don't mind the directionlessness as much as I did 10 years ago

I always liked the thirty minute track "Iced World" from The Drop but never listened to it because the first half of the disc is so scattered -- now with that track alone ripped to iTunes, it's getting listened to

Been on a bit of a binge with his DX-7 stuff of late -- the unreleased Textures being my go-to listen, consisting of Shutov, Neroli, and unreleased stuff recorded from the mid-80s onward.

Kinda bummed that the bells record seems to be out of print at the moment. Will check out Lightness on YouTube now.

The Bells is avail from Eno's shop

I like "bells" a lot. Is he still selling "Curiosities?" I wish his intern or whomever kept releasing volumes of that.

I like Lightness quite a bit -- it's like Thursday Afternoon meets the slowed down ARP of "2/2" that concludes Music for Airports. Good stuff.

In a fit of boredom, I bought both Curiosities volumes and the Bell Studies on CD today from the EnoShop.

I like Bell Studies a lot.