Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Loud And Quiet DECEMBER 2010 - by Sam Walton

BRIAN ENO: SMALL CRAFT ON A MILK SEA

Brian Eno on Warp should be a match made in heaven, and indeed the heavens are where much of Small Craft On A Milk Sea lingers, beginning and ending with sections that evoke the record's title with poetic ease. Thankfully, though, Eno's first lyric-free record for seven years isn't entirely smothered in celestial lube, and indeed its grubbier corners are its most remarkable. Elegantly sequenced into five three-song segments, each with distinct moods, the album is gratifyingly simple to navigate, making Eno's diversions - first into tribal techno and then a swaggering kind of broken two-step - pleasingly digestible. That's not to say that Small Craft On A Milk Sea isn't a full-bodied, intense experience - it is, but it also has a lightness of touch, grace, and a substantial kind of beauty that, in its more mud-flecked moments, roots it firmly in the real world.