Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Record Collector FEBRUARY 2017 - by Phil Smith

BRIAN ENO: REFLECTION

Reflecting on a long career

There's no bad time for a Brian Eno ambient album, but now's possibly the best time of all. The genre's having a sustained revival, Eno's brother Roger has recently contributed to The Orb's near-perfect Cow, and Eno's work has just been examined in Brian Eno: Oblique Music.

Eno is aware of the circularity involved in his new composition (suggested by the title), but this is hardly a punk band bashing out numbers from their glory days. Reflection consists of one hour-length piece, and it's thoroughly beautiful. its parts arrive without hurry to lay gently across one another, conversing with their bedfellows. Congenial tones emerge from the ringing drones, in an eminently thoughtful manner, seemingly melancholy (and near-static), yet so sumptuous that delight is the principal reaction. Eno always talks about ambient music accompanying other activities, but it's hard not to think of people playing this to escape the world.

It seems harsh not to deliver Reflection five stars, but on one side there are those poor souls who still can't give themselves up to longer pieces, and yet the concept feels threatened by the (unavailable for review) vinyl version splitting the work into four parts. Really though, Reflection is an album of as high quality artistry as could possibly be expected.