Brian Eno | Artist

Brian Peter George Eno is an English musician, composer, record producer, writer, and visual artist born 1949 at Melton, Suffolk. A self-described "non-musician", Eno has helped introduce unique conceptual approaches and recording techniques to contemporary music. He has been described as one of popular music's most influential and innovative figures. Eno studied painting and experimental music at the art school of Ipswich Civic College in the mid-1960s, and then at Winchester School of Art. Whilst at school, he used a tape recorder as a musical instrument and in 1964 joined his first group, the Black Aces, a four-piece with Eno on drums. In late 1967 he formed the Merchant Taylor's Simultaneous Cabinet, an avant-garde music, art, and performance trio. This was followed by short stints in multiple avant-garde and college groups, including The Maxwell Demon and Dandelion and The War Damage which featured Eno as frontman who adapted a theatrical persona on stage and later played the guitar. In 1969, after separating from his wife, Eno moved to London where his professional music career began. He became involved with the Scratch Orchestra and the Portsmouth Sinfonia. His first appearance on a commercially released recording is the Deutsche Grammophon edition of The Great Learning (1971) by Cornelius Cardew. At one point, Eno had to earn money as paste-up assistant for the advertisement section of a local paper for three months. He quit and became an electronics dealer by buying old speakers and making new cabinets for them before selling them to friends. In 1971, Eno co-formed the glam and art rock band Roxy Music following a chance meeting with saxophonist Andy Mackay at a train station. Eno played synthesiser and tape recorders on their first two groundbreaking albums Roxy Music (1972), and For Your Pleasure (1973). He is best known for his pioneering work in ambient music, music production, multimedia installations and collaborations with names such as Robert Fripp, David Byrne, David Bowie, John Cale, Harold Budd and Karl Hyde. His influence on ambient-electronic, post-punk and post-rock music, has arguably been more profound than any other musician of his time. Eno was early to embrace the emerging German Krautrock scene and has done considerable work with influential artists such as Moebius, Roedelius, Conny Plank, and the Cluster and Harmonia collectives. As a producer Eno has put his stamp on classic albums such as U2's Joshua Tree, Ultravox's debut Ultravox!, Devo's Q:Are We Not Men?, Talking Heads' Remain in Light and Fear of Music, and Laurie Anderson's Bright Red. To-date Eno has recorded over sixty albums as a soloist or primary collaborator. Standout albums include Here Come the Warm Jets (1974), Taking Tiger Mountain (1974), Another Green World (1975), Before and After Science (1977), Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978), Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirrors (1982), Ambient 4: On Land (1982), Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks (1983), The Pearl (1984) and Thursday Afternoon (1985). There are several excellent compilation box releases including Eno Box I: Instrumental (1993), Eno Box II: Vocal (1993), and Music For Installations (2018). From his many collaboration projects, a selection of standouts includes with Robert Fripp: No Pussyfooting (1973), Evening Star (1975), and Olympia, Paris, France May 28, 1975 (2011), with Cluster: Cluster & Eno (1977), and Begegnungen (1984), with David Byrne My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981), with Jah Wobble Spinner (1995), with John Cale Wrong Way Up (1990), and with Karl Hyde High Life (2014). Eno also partnered with David Bowie in the making of the so-called Berlin Trilogy: Low (1977), Heroes (1977), and Lodger (1979). Eno is also a prolific writer, having authored several excellent books on music theory and art including A Year With Swollen Appendices, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond, and More Dark Than Shark. In 1994, Microsoft designers approached Eno to compose music for the Windows 95 project and the result was the six-second start-up music-sound of the Windows 95 operating system, "The Microsoft Sound." Eno later admitted that he created it using a Macintosh computer, stating "I wrote it on a Mac. I've never used a PC in my life, I don't like them." Eno is also the founder of Obscure and Opal Records, and the brother of Modern Classical musician Roger Eno.

Artist Website: enoshop.co.uk

Featured Albums: Brian Eno

Related Artists: Roxy Music, 801, Passengers, Fripp & Eno, Eno & Cale, Eno & Byrne, Eno & Wobble, David Bowie, Eno & Hyde, Harold Budd

Collections: Music Visionaries