Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK
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INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Something Else! JANUARY 13, 2007 - by Nick DeRiso

BRIAN ENO: NERVE NET

Nerve Net, on Opal-Warner Bros, was fun because it approached Eno's best work (and my favorite period of his) in the late-1970s/early-1980s.

Eno is flat-out at home within the soft, Stryofoam walls of a studio - improvising with the latest electronic gimmickry, but using music structures often associated with Third World countries.

This is the magic of his work with both David Byrne and the Talking Heads on My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts and Remain In Light. (Not to mention important assists on some of David Bowie and U2's best stuff. And some terrific space music, which I also love. But that's for another time.)

Eno - synth player, you'll remember, with Roxy Music until 1973 - is deft at this sort of thing: Making music that is both booty-wagging and intelligent. Nerve Net is always hinting at polyrhythms... but also classical music.

What Actually Happened? is a good microcosm: Start with a metronomish beat, then the descending keyboards - adding a kind of synthetic doom - then, a moment later Eno is tweaking and streaking the canvas with slashing notes. Another moment, still, and there's this other-worldly vocal added.

It's the kind of record where people are credited with "the mix" and, more absurdly, with "mist".

An extra song turns out to be the weirdest track of all: Eno playing solo piano.

WHOA.


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