Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

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The Independent APRIL 21, 2016 - by Andy Gill

BRIAN ENO: THE SHIP

Obliquely inspired by the sinking of the Titanic as a metaphor for scientific hubris presaging the industrialised conflict of WWI, The Ship is a strange amalgam of Eno's familiar ambient approach with poetry - the latter delivered in a sonorous basso profundo that resonates with a sort of looming, warning warmth. The Ship itself occupies twenty-one minutes of unhurried electronic tones and occasional stirring string-synth pads, while the three-part Fickle Sun adds descriptive percussion to its depiction of toiling labourers, possibly poor bloody infantry trapped in oceanic "wave... after wave... after wave" of trench warfare. The final part concludes, in epiphanic manner, with a starkly rousing version of The Velvet Underground's I'm Set Free.