Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Uncut JUNE 2024 - by Louis Pattison

BRIAN ENO/HOLGER CZUKAY/J. PETER SCHWALM: SUSHI. ROTI. REIBEKUCHEN.

Lost live collaboration yields jazz, electronics and canapés

By 1998, Brian Eno had all but abandoned the field of popular music and was expounding an approach to music and art that was increasingly reliant on ambient and generative techniques. Consequently, Sushi. Roti. Reibekuchen. captures something that was becoming rather rare: a polo-necked Eno, live onstage. The occasion was the opening party for his exhibition at an art museum in Bonn, and the performance found him flanked by J. Peter Schwalm's electro-jazz group Slop Shop and Holger Czukay, mischievous former bassist for Can. As invitees dined on sushi, roti and German potato waffles, the group set about a three-hour improvised set, the highlights of which are collected here. It's a soundclash of a distinctly '90s vintage, mixing skittering drum'n'bass rhythms and murky downbeat, with Czukay practising his "radio painting", dropping snatches of found sound into the mix. The results are diverting, if not quite revalatory. But there is something appealing to this music's exploratory spirit: a time capsule of the decade's bright-eyed techno-optimism.