Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

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The Age NOVEMBER 5, 2010 - by Craig Mathieson

BRIAN ENO: SMALL CRAFT ON A MILK SEA

With Small Craft On A Milk Sea, Brian Eno does something that for him is relatively unusual: he makes a perfectly decent record that bears few surprises. The former Roxy Music maven, possible inventor of ambient music and influential producer here works in collaboration with Leo Abrahams and Jon Hopkins and they stick to tense, tangled instrumental pieces such as the clipped rhythm of Flint March, the sci-fi pulse of Paleosonic, or the somnambulant soundscape Lesser Heaven. The desire here is to accrete detail, to funnel and create, which is not exactly progressive as electronic music currently stands, where innovation is represented by more extreme tendencies - whether it's the rapturous overwhelming of the senses favoured by Fuck Buttons or the uncompromising minimalism of SND. Eno sticks to his mood pieces, essentially possible soundtrack selections that could be allocated to a Michael Mann (Slow Ice, Old Moon) or Oliver Assayas (2 Forms Of Anger). There are no narratives for these songs, just comprehensively curated ideas that come and go one after the other. His name bears more weight than the album can.