Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Mojo MAY 2004 - by Mike Barnes

MICHAEL NYMAN: DECAY MUSIC

First ever CD release for the first-ever album released on Eno's Obscure label back in 1976.

Michael Nyman was the first to use the word ‘minimalist' to describe music, back in 1968, but the ‘M' word never quite fitted the faus-baroque motorik of his soundtracks for Peter Greenaway's films – even less so his opulent score for Jane Campion's The Piano. But for one of the records in the current Nyman reissue programme, the lesser-known Decay Music, it is entirely appropriate. Written for an early Greenaway film of the same name, 1-100 is a piece of four superimposed piano tracks each playing one hundred different chords in sequence, after the previous one has died away (the sparse soundfield of chords hanging in space must surely have influenced Eno's own ambient music). The percussion piece Bell Set No.1 has a stately, ritualistic vibe, and for those shouting ‘get on with it', extra track 1-100 (Faster Decay) positively shifts in comparison.