Brian Eno has been influenced by a quite diverse amount of music and musicians. You can look at Arabic, African and Bulgarian music as well as American doo-wop (which Brian Eno once called “Alien Music”). Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly and the Ray Conniff Singers. He really was taken by American R&B, Swing and Jazz. He would take his parents record player, which had a repeat function on it, and listen to music all day. In Brian’s home his parents had a player piano which Brian would play all of the time. He attributes the music that was on the player piano as a quality that has lasted with him throughout his career.

With Eno’s first solo album, “Here Come the Warm Jets” we hear some similarities to Roxy Music as Eno took on the role of main composer, and producer. The album was recorded in twelve days with sixteen musicians and tends to fall in the experimental/punk/rock genres. He controlled what was recorded and often would put the musicians into opportunities to create freely or to improvise, as he would communicate with bodily movements, hand gestures or verbally communicating what he wanted. Eno’s stance was to listen to what the musicians put down and try to see what he could create off of it. The finished mixes would rarely sound like what the musicians had actually tracked, as Brian would take the 24-track tape and then manipulate the tracks to suite his vision. His second album, “Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy)” predominately used a five piece band and resembles “Warm Jets” somewhat in the experimental/rock genres it continues to explore. Much of the music is found to be rock with standard chord changes and instrumentation, but finds experimentation in the treatment that Eno supplied to some of the instruments. He made no attempt to make it a cultural album, despite the title – he simply found a few postcards of the Maoist revolutionary drama and thought the title was evocative. Both albums began to give Brian Eno a feeling for what he wanted and both led him to his progressive rock masterpiece “Another Green World” – the first of Eno’s solo albums in which he is credited as the sole composer.

Some of the characteristics that sets Brian Eno’s music apart from other artists is his ability to harness a sense of serenity. While I listened to most of his music I found myself feeling relaxed and at peace. I must admit that I listened to most of his ambient work and am not as intrigued by his earlier progressive rock offerings. Another distinct characteristic to Eno’s material is his instrumental experimentation. He likes to take ordinary instruments and either play them in an unordinary way (ex. Castanet Guitar: guitar played with mallets) or produce/mix them to alter their timbre.

While I have always been aware of Brian Eno and his immense contributions to modern music, I must admit that I have found a new hero thanks to the listening assignment from this week’s class. I will definitely be delving more into Brian Eno’s discography to explore his writing style, and more importantly his production techniques. I find great pleasure in trying to create minimalistic arrangements that sometimes contain only a soft synth pad and a woodwind or piano. A lot of what I heard on Brian Eno’s playlist really spoke to me on an emotional level, and I would like to thank Brian Eno for that!