Brian Eno: The First Four

The godfather of ambient music, hit producer, and art rock pioneer's quartet of vocal albums is a view into the mind of a genuine genius.

This piece is from the What Am I Making Archives. It was first published on August 24, 2023. This version has been lightly updated and edited for this posting.

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Brian Eno is a name that conjures myriad reactions from a wide variety of folks. To the average music fan, Eno’s name is likely to bring to mind his hugely successful production efforts with acts like David Bowie, U2, Talking Heads, and many more.

Music nerds, and even synth afficianados - should you have any in your midst - will see Brian Eno as the Godfather of ambient music. For these folks, Eno is often as much a theory as he is a human being. Granted, it’s a fascinating theory.

In describing his approach to what he termed “ambient music”, Eno says,

“Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.”

Old guard glam rock fans might have even fallen in love with Eno when he first burst upon the scene with the vanguard group, Roxy Music in 1970. Known as much for his wild outfits, and onstage antics, Eno was a driving force behind the band.

Eno (far left) as a part of Roxy Music.

After three years and two albums, Eno’s time in Roxy came to an end as he and frontman Ferry began to have increasingly disparate artistic pursuits. Additionally, Eno had begun to resent the position of second fiddle.

Eno set to writing songs at a feverish pace and began assembling a band. Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay might have still been active members of Roxy Music, but they provided foundational support to Eno as he began his solo career. The supporting cast on the record eventually grew to a whopping 16 players. All ten songs were written or co-written by Eno, and he had handled his own production duties as well. Something for which he would quickly garner a sterling reputation.

Here Come The Warm Jets was released to critical acclaim in February of 1974. The album channels much of the art-rock swagger that had defined Roxy Music. Eno took that swagger and veered it down an alley littered with squelching boxes, and hissing machines.

Listen closely to the helicopter whirr of guitar and the bubbling and buzzy synths of ‘The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch and Me’, or the opening drones of ‘Needle In The Camel’s Eye’ that kicks off the album to see early examples of how Eno melds melody with machine to great effect.

The result is a kind of film school glam. Eno crafts mural sized character studies from sing-song nonsense, all set to pulsing rhythms and awkward hooks. It holds the shadowy eroticism of T. rex without the confidence. It’s Ziggy Stardust stuck in a rest area, in a beat up sedan, with PG Wodehouse riding shotgun.

In an almost Newtonian response to his massive supporting cast of sixteen players on Here Come The Warm Jets, Eno drilled the core musicians for his sophomore effort down to just five. Phil Manzanera returned as primary guitarist, and the rhythm section of Brian Torrington and Freddie Smith rounded out the main band. Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine played additional drums and offered backing vocals.

The vague concept for the record was based around Chinese Communism, spy craft, and international intrigue. Eno had been working with artist Peter Schmidt on a series of artistic prompts that could be used to make creative decisions for the album. The pair ended up on an approach called Oblique Strategies.

Schmidt and Eno would later expand the Oblique Strategies concept to 100 cards, each with its own artistic prompt. Schmidt had originally begun work on this concept under the name “Thoughts behind the thoughts”. You can learn more on the Oblique Strategies project at the link below.

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Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) is a stunning work of pop oddity. In a world of secret recorders, double crosses, and spiked drinks Brian Eno carved a wickedly fun pastiche of Cold War antics, glam rock cheese, and experimental gobbledygook that sounds both perfect for 1974, and otherworldly at any point in time. It is quintessential Eno.

While the album is rife with hummable melodies and plenty of odd sonic debris to fall in love with, the album holds a few highlights in particular. The sing along refrain of ‘Back In Judy’s Jungle’ as it fades out is ridiculous, and will stick in your head for days.

The incessant click track of ‘The Fat Lady of Limbourg’ reinforces the paranoia of a life in espionage. ‘Third Uncle’ thumps from the grooves that begin side two and cascades into jittery guitars, sizzling hi-hat, and coke fueled fills. As we roll toward the album’s end ‘The True Wheel’ melds Roxy Music, childlike sing-alongs, and a gorgeously greasy guitar part from Manzanera.

Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) received quite a bit of praise, but failed to sell well. While Here Come The Warm Jets had peaked at #26 on the album charts in England, Tiger Mountain failed to make a dent.

It’s likely that releasing no singles from the album did not help to promote sales. Furthermore, Eno released his follow up just 9 months after the debut of Here Come The Warm Jets. The market may have been a bit over-saturated. Schedules be damned, Eno had work to do.

Eno entered the studio in the summer of 1975 hoping to create the record from scratch. He brought in no notes, ideas, lyrics, scraps or songs. For several days, he struggled to produce anything he could get excited about.

Leaning once again on the Oblique Strategy cards, ideas started to flow. King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp and former Velvet Underground member John Cale were key contributors to the project. With their influence, and his own adventurism, Eno began to incorporate more elements of ambient into his vocal records.

Another Green World is a moment of transformation for Brian Eno. The album still features flourishes of the quirky glam-pop that marked Here Come The Warm Jetsand Taking Mountain (By Strategy). Standout tracks like St. Elmo’s Fire’ and ‘I’ll Come Running’ belie a maturing songwriter still capable of crafting gorgeously eccentric pop records.

Half of the compositions on Another Green World are instrumental and feature only Brian Eno as performer in the studio. The construction of these songs and pieces feels more like a researcher working alone behind the scenes than a songwriter collaborating with other musicians.

This album is the most singularly Brian Eno record in his quartet of “vocal records”. Eno’s odd world of eccentric pop and playful sounds coalesces on Another Green World in to a symphony of melody, minimalism, and vision.

Based on the sequencing and the nature in which the tracks fold into one another, it also appears that Eno saw Another Green World as a compete work, and not simply as unconnected fragments of sound.

On the heels of a quiet, minimal record like Another Green World, Eno’s fourth long-player, Before And After Science plays like a raucous affair. More conventional rock song structures like ‘Kings Lead Hat’ and ‘Backwater’ scream from the grooves with urgency.

‘Here He Comes’ rolls like a lost Al Stewart classic rediscovered by Eno. Moments of ambient dot the record as support within typical tunes and in the form of gorgeous compositions like ‘Spider And I’ or ‘Through Hollow Lands’.

By the time Brian Eno had released Before and After Science he had begun work as producer on the first Talking Heads album. In fact, the track ‘Kings Lead Hat’ is an anagram of Talking Heads.

Eno finished work on what would be his final rock record and then headed to Berlin to help David Bowie begin work on his record Low. Eno and Bowie would work together for three records in a row culminating in what has been dubbed the Berlin Trilogy; Low, Heroes and The Lodger. This collaboration would forever alter the careers of both men.

Few artists manage to record and release four albums as unique, vibrant, and timeless as Brian Eno did between 1973 and 1977. Before becoming one of the most sought after producers in the word; before giving ambient music a name and then becoming its’ greatest ambassador, Brian Eno was a humble rock star.

His four vocal records tell the story of an artist who could perhaps have given us a full career of albums like these, but oh what we would have lost in the process. It’s really a bit of a miracle that these albums are here at all.

For the average fan, these four records may be but an unturned stone in the wilderness somewhere between Roxy Music, ambient pioneer, and producer extraordinaire. For the rest of us, they are the centerpiece of a truly unique life in music and creation.

Cheers,
Matty C