Ambient Avatar Brian Eno Interview in Echoes Podcast
Brian Eno & John Diliberto, London 2005
Brian Eno recently announced the revival of his record label, Opal, the label he founded in 1988. Opal Records had a short but significant original run from 1988 to 1991. Its roster included Roger Eno, Harold Budd, Laraaji, Jon Hassell, Daniel Lanois, Armenian duduk musician Djivan Gasparyan, Hugo Largo, Russian band Zvuki Mu and John Cale, along with Brian Eno himself. To relaunch the label they are releasing new editions of two albums that have been largely unavailable for nearly two decades: Another Day on Earth and Drawn from Life, his collaboration with German electronic musician J. Peter Schwalm. These are both among my favorite and most overlooked Eno recordings. We interviewed Eno at this time in 2005. He talked about Another Day on Earth as well as another project, Drums Between the Bells,which didn’t see the light of day until 2011. In the Echoes Podcast, I bring you our 2005 interview with Brian Eno
Another Day on Earth is an ambient song cycle that is full of yearning and a mood that Brian Eno has called “brave and resigned.” Even in song, Eno is a master of ambience, creating detailed soundworlds and lyrics that don’t so much make sense as create a feeling. It took Eno 15 years to create a new vocal album and the songs span that time with the welcome reprise of “Under,” a devastatingly beautiful hymn of loss and redemption that dates back to the aborted My Squelchy Life album in 1991. The song turned up before on the Songs from Cool World soundtrack and Eno Box II: Vocals. In 2014 it finally found it’s original home on the release Nerve Net/My Squelchy Life. Joining “Under” as one of Eno’s most sublime songs is “And Then So Clear,” a paean of wasted longing and hope with its cycling rhythm, ethereal guitars and Eno’s auto-tuned vocal harmonies. We debuted this track on Echoes in a longer, pre-release version. You can hear Eno’s love of gospel music on “This” and “Bottomliners.” You can almost picture them in a particularly pensive Baptist church with Eno’s double-tracked vocals emulating a solemn choir. But it’s not all minor key reflection. Eno unleashes a couple of fractured tunes like “Bonebomb” that’s from a project on which he mutated the meter of poets reciting their works. Another Day on Earth is a more personal album from the ambient avatar, a recording of rare and meticulous maturity.
–John Diliberto