One of the most talented and distinctive producers/artist that bridged the changing sound from the late sixties to modern day ambient is Brian Eno. Unfamiliar with the name? I’m sure you won’t be unfamiliar with the sounds – remember ‘Trainspotting’ when XXX dives into a toilet? That was ‘Deep Blue Day’ or how about ’28 Days later’ as the taxi winds its way away from turbulent London? That was ‘An Ending (Ascent)” or How about the Prophecy Theme’ from ‘Dune’? If film scores don’t linger on your brain – how about David Bowie ‘Heroes’, Passengers ‘Miss Sarajevo’, U2 ‘With or without you’, Coldplay ‘Viva La Vida”

Roxy Music
The band drifted together as bands do in the early 1970′s just after Eno had graduated form art school and was looking for wats to fuse art and music. As a child growing up in rural England he’d enjoyed the solitude of fossil hunting but also sung in choirs where he learned to appreciate words as a form of sound. Sung Latin is beautiful, but not understanding Latin turns the vocals into part of the soundscape, meaningless and yet powerful.

Roxy music was something new and different in the world of pop that was getting jaded. They dressed stylishly albeit odd and the music was lyrically clever thanks to Bryan Ferry. He and Eno though were too strong personality wise for the band to work forever and when the dynamic changed too much, Eno left to pursue his experimental electronic music.

As it was later said, Roxy music was a great band because they changed things, they made a difference and influenced others. That their line-up wasn’t rigid and fixed like other bands also helped preserve and keep their sound fresh. They reformed witht he original line up and then again recently finding that the time out was beneficial and refreshing, starting to work again in the same way as they ahd done before and discarding differences.

Collaborations
Eno collaborated with Nico of Velvet Underground, David Bowie and many others, all the while releasing his own albums of ambient sound scapes and exploring sound as a medium of expression, not just looking at being musical. Musicians came to him when they wanted a new sound or to get themselves out or a routine, and one of these was U2.

He experiments with sound, with how sound affects people and seems to be one of the few artists that actually think hard about how music is formed and what its overall effect can be. He himself started In Roxy music in the 70′s but left 2 years later, deciding to continue with his own experiments, indeed, as he has said, his first instrument was a tape recorder

When you get involved in modern music you need to go back over its modern day history to truly understand how sound had inspired and developed over generations and looking at Brian Eno’s work its easy to see how his influence has regenerated and inspired countless bands.

sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00q9xqm/Brian_Eno_Hits_Classics_and_Tracks/ available until 1st Feb 2009

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00q9xqk/Arena_Brian_Eno_Another_Green_World/ available until 1st Feb 2009