Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Magnet DECEMBER 2011 - by J. Poet

BRIAN ENO: PANIC OF LOOKING

This EP presents six outtakes from Brian Eno's last album, Drums Between The Bells, a collaboration with poet Rick Holland. Holland supplies the lyrics - or, more properly, words - as the "songs" are spoken, not sung. Holland's poems share the characteristics of Eno's music: Like the thoughts that pass through the mind just as you're falling asleep, the words bob through the mix in random patters, at once meaningless and rife with poignancy.

Musically, the sounds drift pleasantly from new-age washes of mellow synthesizer to minimal keyboard textures, with measured notes hanging in the air to produce waves of overtones and spacey harmonies. The title track sounds like an early Eno pop experiment, but most of these miniatures are cryptic combinations of words and music: sparse, mysterious and open to myriad interpretations. How much you like them will depend on how much patience you have for Eno's high-concept approach to music making.