The Working Life of Brian Eno (From 2005 to the future)

So here we are at the end of this great cycle dedicated to Brian Eno which has, unsurprisingly, been punctuated by many collaborations: his brother Roger, Robert Fripp, David Byrne, Peter Gabriel...Far from drying up over the years, his curiosity has led him to many fertile lands. African music with the Malian version of Terry Riley's “In C”; Arabic music (with his friend Rachid Taha and the Palestinian group Trio Jourban); Jamaican music with the unstoppable Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, and with supermodel model Grace Jones. For two albums he formed a dream duo with Karl Hyde (Underworld), and explored noisy shores with Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine). The cream of a younger generation also came knocking. In 2008 he produced Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida!” which has sold over ten million copies. He produces James Blake, The Gift (a Portuguese synth-pop band), plays with Jon Hopkins (one of the masters of electronica), Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz). In short, Eno is, as always, everywhere.

When he works alone, diverse collaborations take a back seat in favour of ambient music. To be precise, he creates his own software to compose so-called ‘generative’ music. “77 Million Paintings” from 2006 refers in its title to the approximate number of possible combinations of music and digital paintings (the complete work was released as a cd-rom). In 2008 he released Bloom, a musical generator that adapts to the listener's mood (a new version was created in 2018). In that same spirit, he released Reflection in 2017, for Warp Records. Calm and meditative, this work (the most accomplished according to its author) was the product of his own software, marketed by Macintosh.

To still be able to reinvent oneself like this, after fifty years of work, is a miracle. Eno is not only a musician or a painter, but a designer. He produces systems. He creates environments, be they concrete or virtual. He proves that music is no longer only the musicians’ prerogative, and that seizing opportunities for creation should be the priority. For example, listening to a record at too low a volume when one is bedridden can generate just as many ideas (in this case, the idea of ambient music) as studying a Bach fugue. Eno encourages us to approach the field of creation with a broad-mindedness reminiscent of that of John Cage. He might even surpass Cage when we consider the fact that he never played glam rock, sang in a choir, cited Gene Chandler's “Duke of Earl” as his favourite song, designed software, composed a track to help you sleep (“Subahar Sleeping Music”), and many many other things...And considering the 4125 unfinished pieces that Brian Eno's computer contained a few years ago, perhaps we’ve only glimpsed at the scope of his creations both past and future. The story is far from over, because the anagram “One Brain” is far from clichéd...