Brian Eno - by Sean Albiez & David Pattie (Paperback)

About the Book

Examines Eno's work as a musician, theoretician, and collaborator.

Book Synopsis

On the back of his published diary Brian Eno describes himself variously as: a mammal, a father, an artist, a celebrity, a pragmatist, a computer-user, an interviewee, and a 'drifting clarifier'. To this list we might add rock star (on the first two Roxy Music albums); the creator of lastingly influential music (Another Green World; Music for Airports); a trusted producer (for Talking Heads, U2, Coldplay and a host of other artists); the maker of large-scale video and installation artworks; a maker of apps and interactive software; and so on. He is one of the most feted and influential musical figures of the past forty years, even though he has described himself on more than one occasion as a non-musician.

This volume examines Eno's work as a musician, as a theoretician, as a collaborator, and as a producer. Brian Eno is one of the most influential figures in popular music; an updated examination of his work on this scale is long overdue.

Review Quotes

Contributions include meticulous descriptions of compositions; a chapter about Eno's ambient oeuvre (which quirkily compares him to Tolkien at great length) ... Albiez contributes to the best piece on precursors to Eno's use of the studio to create new sounds. ... Intellectually stimulating.
Record Collector

Specialists in English, media, film and television have also been invited to take part in this conversation, which feels authentic to the spirit of Eno ... The book mulls over those necessary questions that anyone thinking about Eno must eventually face.
The Wire

The collection's standouts are Martin James' pithy, pacy account of Eno's years in New York (1978-84) ... and Hillegonda Rietveld's coolly attentive reading of the soundtrack to the film The Lovely Bones, in which his "oblique music seems like a ghostly call from the 'in-between'".
Times Higher Education

About the Author

Sean Albiez is Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at Southampton Solent University, UK

David Pattie is Professor in Drama in the Department of Performing Arts at the University of Chester, UK.