Through his work as a synthesiser player with Roxy Music and the release of successful solo albums, Brian Eno became a pop star in the mid-1970s. He explored musical ideas with the krautrock band Harmonia and Robert Fripp, but was also part of the Scratch Orchestra, which focused on free improvisation.
With his label Obscure, Eno began curating a series of experimental listening music in 1975. The participating artists left their previous approaches to music production behind and were eager to draw inspiration from traditions, work with new technologies, or engage in challenging group situations.
Ten records were released on the label by 1978. The eleventh should have come from Eno himself. However, his album Music For Airports was so groundbreaking that it qualified as the first release in the new Ambient series.
71 minutes with Gavin Bryars, Harold Budd, Max Eastley, Michael Nyman and others.
Featured cover art: Michael Nyman – Decay Music
Playlist
Gavin Bryars – 1, 2, 1-2-3-4
Ensemble piece for ten musicians who reproduce what they hear through headphones connected to personal cassette recorders. (1975, Obscure 2)
Harold Budd – Let Us Go Into The House Of The Lord
With the aim of being ‘existentially pretty, mindless, shallow and utterly devastating’, the song is realised by Harold Budd after he has minimised himself to such an extent that he has withdrawn from composing for a period of ten years. (1973-74, Obscure 10)
Christopher Hobbs – McCrimmon Will Never Return
Composed for the Promenade Theatre Orchestra, the piece features a detached melody inspired by Scottish bagpipe music known as Piobaireachd (Pibroch) and played on four reed organs. (1970-72, Obscure 2)
Penguin Café Orchestra – Pigtail
Simon Jeffes leaves classical music and rock behind and founds the Penguin Café Orchestra to celebrate the unconscious with its often suppressed qualities such as randomness, spontaneity and irrationality. (1974-76, Obscure 7)
John Cage – The Wonderful Widow Of Eighteen Springs (feat. Robert Wyatt)
Passage from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, reworked by John Cage in 1942 to be accompanied by sounds from hitting a closed piano in various ways; sung by Robert Wyatt. (1976, Obscure 5)
John White – Drinking & Hooting Machine
An ensemble of five skilled performers blows bottles with ‘whole breaths’, alternated by taking sips, swigs or gulps, reminiscent of an aviary full of owls practising slow descending scales. (1976, Obscure 8)
Max Eastley – Metallophone
Fascinated by musical instruments from the past and future, artist and kinetic sculptor Max Eastley invents devices such as the metallophone, which relies on wind to create an enchanting sonic environment. (1975, Obscure 4)
Michael Nyman – 1-100
The piece was written for Peter Greenaway’s film of the same name and is based on a hundred chords ranging from the highest to the lowest note on the piano – as soon as one note has faded away, the next chord follows. The final version consists of four versions played back simultaneously and at half speed, revealing accidental concurrences and staggered sonorities. (1976, Obscure 6)
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