BRIAN ENO: THE SHUTOV ASSEMBLY (1992)
1) Triennale; 2) Alhondiga; 3)
Markgraph; 4) Lanzarote; 5) Francisco; 6) Riverside; 7) Innocenti; 8)
Stedelijk; 9) Ikebukuro; 10) Cavallino.
And now, back to magic ambient territory. This
is actually a collection of various tracks, most of them recorded by Eno in the
second half of the 1980s for assorted installations around the world (hence all
the titles where you can distinguish Italian, German, Dutch, and Japanese words
that relate to installation geography) — and then put together as a mix tape
for the Russian artist Sergei Shutov. The latter, as it happens, contacted Eno
saying that he loved to work to the sound of his records, but that he also had
limited access to these records (I guess the contact either took place before
1991, or else Sergei was too poor at the time to buy imported CDs and too
honest to stock up on bootlegs), so Eno took pity on the music-hungry artist
and put together all these tracks as a present (I guess Sergei didn't mean to
say that he was actually shaking his ass off to Here Come The Warm Jets while working — now that would have been
one funny case of artistic miscommunication).
Eventually, Eno liked his own mix tape so much
that he proclaimed there was a common theme to all these tracks (mere mortal
men will not be able to see it, though, so it is a good test on whether you are
predisposed to immortality), and put it out commercially. Normally, I tend to
avoid commenting on his «installation albums», because there's so many of them
and they are so interchangeable, but The
Shutov Assembly does not formally count as one, and at the same time it
does give you a very representative peek into Eno's music-as-painting approach.
Unlike Thursday Afternoon, this one
can be rather easily sat through: all the tracks but one are relatively short,
there is some diversity involved, and the minimalism is rarely jarring,
because, for the most part, this is not Eno trying to see how much he can
squeeze out of one note — this is Eno producing soundscapes to match visual
settings, and the degree of minimalism here most likely depends on the type of
visual setting.
Nothing here counts as a breakthrough idea or
anything like that, but it might be the best kind of «guess your environment!»
game album by the man since Another
Green World (stuff like Apollo
was all just one environment, and the
Music For Films series were quite
scattered and sketchy). Here is a quick runthrough, made up on the spot.
ʽTriennaleʼ is clearly a quiet, beautiful, and
slightly dangerous underwater environment, small currents and aquatic organisms
gliding past you without paying much attention. ʽAlhondigaʼ is a cavernous
setting, with various minerals glistening off the walls and cool, fidgety
breezes running through the tunnels in the form of white-noise swooshes or
violin-like tremolos. ʽMarkgraphʼ is a dusty old dungeon, inhabited by loyal
spirits of the former occupants quietly hooting around. ʽLanzaroteʼ probably
takes place on a moonless night somewhere in a large clearing, surrounded by
deep forest on all sides — you're placed in the middle and you have to sniff
out which side does the danger come from. (Hint: it never ever comes).
ʽFranciscoʼ takes you to a cave once again, but this time it is a magical one,
maybe Ali Baba's or something, with gold glistening all around that you find
yourself afraid to touch.
ʽRiversideʼ, despite the title (which really
just refers to Riverside Studios in London), could have fit in well on Apollo — it's full of little space
bleeps that convey the serene beauty of nothing out there. ʽInnocentiʼ is
actually similar in mood to ʽRiversideʼ, but has a larger amount of robotic
electronic noises, so maybe it has you inside
the spaceship rather than on the ʽRiversideʼ outside. ʽStedelijkʼ has lots of
church organ-like tones, so you could try and imagine yourself inside some sort
of futuristic temple where you float through the air when communicating with
God, because gravity prevents you from successful communication. ʽIkebukuroʼ,
the longest track on the album, is also the weirdest one — a 16-minute pattern
of deep faraway chimes that echo off each other, overdubbed with what sounds
like furiously, frantically, and pointlessly flapping wings... umm... Pegasus
caught up in a musical spider web? Whatever. Finally, ʽCavallinoʼ is a quiet,
but stately sunset that also takes place on a distant planet with its own Sun.
If there really is a «common theme» to it all,
I have yet to find it, although one must not forget that the thin line between
deep insight and ridiculous bullshit in modern art is dainty thin indeed. Regardless,
this is a pretty nifty collection of atmospheres: I certainly wish he'd taken
some unnecessary fat off ʽIkebukuroʼ (sixteen minutes of wing-flap brings
this way too close to Thursday
Afternoon for comfort), and the degree of diversity isn't really so high as
to make it his latter-day equivalent of Another
Green World, but at least this is one fine gift for the likes of Shutov.
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