Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Mojo DECEMBER 2015 - by David Sheppard

LARAAJI - AMBIENT 3: DAY OF RADIANCE

Shimmering, meditative, Eno-produced soundscapes, from 1980.

In the summer of 1979, Philadelphia-born musician, yoga practitioner and sometime stand-up comic Edward Larry Gordon (AKA Laraaji) was busking on his autoharp in Manhattan's Washington Square Park when Brian Eno strolled by. Enraptured by the empyrean sound, the producer dropped his phone number into Gordon's hat and within weeks the pair were cutting Day Of Radiance together. The most ecstatic release in Eno's Ambient series, and arguably the missing link between ambient electronica and the burgeoning new age scene toward which Laraaji would subsequently err, the album proffers a translucent marriage between Gordon's iridescently strummed and hammered zithers and Eno's deep focus reverb effects. Unfurling over five lengthy, steady state essays, divided into two sections, The Dance and Meditation, this is texturally detailed yet cloud-like music that remains as exotic and immersive as anything in which Eno has ever had a hand.