Brian Eno

Imaginary Landscapes is a profile of visionary composer, artist and producer Brian Eno. It brings into focus Eno’s seemingly disparate work in sound, vision and light, and explores his music in visual terms, based on landscapes and images that have shaped his life as an artist.

John Cage is the subject of a new museum exhibition in Barcelona. The exhibit looks at Cage’s works in various media and his impact on all forms of contemporary art.

The New Yorker’s Alex Ross shares his thoughts on the highlights of the exhibit – but also raises this conundrum:

The great oddity of twentieth-century art history is that while Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock, and other radical postwar painters are almost universally hailed as masters, their works drawing huge crowds in museums, Cage is still often treated as a freak or a charlatan.

The distinction makes no intellectual sense, but there it is.

It is striking that someone as influential as Cage – as a composer, author, electronic music pioneer and artist – hasn’t found an audience that reflects his influence.

Ross is right. Many people that might appreciate Rauschenberg or Pollock would cringe at the idea of sitting through a concert of Cage’s works.

Maybe the answer to Ross’s conundrum is as simple as this: you can’t close your ears.

If you see a painting that’s confrontational, ugly or incomprehensible, you can close your eyes or walk away. You are in control of the experience.

At a concert of music by an artist like Cage, you can’t close your ears or move on to the next thing. You aren’t in control of your experience – you can just react to it.

This seems to be a fundamental challenge of electronic music (and to a certain degree, music in general); when anything is possible, how do you create music that is original, yet still has the power to seduce someone’s ear?

via disquiet; Image: fallwithme

The MoMA Store is carrying a droolworthy deluxe edition of British musician, producer and visual artist Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards.

This is extra-rare fourth edition of Oblique Strategies.

Thr fourth edition of the Oblique Strategies was produced in 1996. Unlike the 1975, 1978, and 1979 editions of the decks, this version was not commercially available; it was a project undertaken by Peter Norton and his family in conjunction with Brian Eno and published in a limited edition of 4,000 distributed to Peter Norton’s close friends and colleagues.

MoMA is selling the set for $200, which means it’s a pretty special deck of cards.

Yes, I want them and no, I can’t afford them. I’m thinking about saving up for MirlitronOne’s $6 music sequencer, instead.

Details below. Read more…

Free Music from Brian Eno: Fans of ambient music and Brian Eno will want to watch for a new album on the new Amazing Sounds label, Harmonia & Eno ‘76 Remixes.

The album features remixes of tracks from the classic album Tracks & Traces by Shackleton, Appleblim & Komonazmuk.

It will be available on limited white vinyl & as a download starting Monday, November 2nd.

Download the remix at the rcrdlbl site.

Brian Eno has had a career as producer, musician, sonic innovator and experimental artist that spans four decades.

He’s produced, arguably, the most important recordings by U2, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Robert Fripp, Devo and others. He also pioneered the genre of “ambient music.” More recently, Eno’s helped create “sonic-art” app Bloom and the video game Spore.

Eno sat down with Minnesota Public Radio’s Steve Seel to discuss the recording studio as canvas, the idea of discovery and risk in music making, as well as his recent reunion with longtime collaborator David Byrne. The interview includes a discussion of Eno’s forays into “generative music,” his concept of composer as gardener, and his ongoing interest in the idea of surrender in music.