Brian Eno
- Issue #139 (Sep 95) | Published 13/03/07
- By: Paul Schütze | Featuring: Brian Eno, Paul Schütze
Once viewed as the guru of Ambient music, Brian Eno is now hailed as a prophet of the digital revolution. In this extended interview, he talks to fellow musician Paul Schütze about the vagaries of the new technologies he's supposed to be championing
During a long and distinguished career nurtured at English art school and continued through Roxy Music and the early solo Ambient albums in the mid-70s, Brian Eno has eluded capture by remaining steps ahead of the men with the labels. His position in the culture of music and art has constantly evolved to the point where he now occupies a rarefied and diffuse status which he can alter according to the needs of the moment. If he faces a problem, it may well be finding a medium which can articulate his numerous impulses in a satisfactory way.
For now, he seems to be spreading himself across a number of individual media, including audio/visual/tactile installations (the recent Self Storage project with Laurie Anderson) and even the rock star charity gala (War Child). As far as music is concerned, he has recently returned to producing new albums by such major league players as U2 and David Bowie, and has just finished work on Spinner, a collaboration with bass player Jah Wobble which updates the music Eno produced for the Derek Jarman film Glitterbug (all projects which he showed little interest in discussing, as it turned out).
The interview took place at Eno's West London studio in July. I arrived at 10am, but he had already been there for four hours and seemed to be working on several unrelated projects simultaneously. The room, like its occupant, was neatly minimal and humming with emphatic potential 'stuff'. Two computers opposed one another across the space - these he later used to show me the numerous self-generating pictures he is working on. Notes, diagrams, paper cut-outs and CDs were strewn about. Prior to the interview, Eno proposed an excursion to the local record shop. He wanted to purchase the extended mix of Donna Summer's "State Of Independence", which, he says, ranks as one of the high points of 20th century art. Eno spent most of the interview lying back on a couch with his eyes closed - at times I felt like his analyst.
Paul Schutze: William Gibson has often gone on record, particularly recently, as being the unwilling prophet of virtual reality. You seem in a sense to be in a slightly similar position, as something like the Alvin Toffler of futurist aesthetics. Is it something you want to spend a huge amount of time doing - predicting the future for people - or would you rather be making it?
Brian Eno: Well, they actually amount to the same thing, in many ways. In making it, you start to imagine it as well. I have always asked questions about why I get fascinated by something that I'm doing, or that somebody else is doing, so there's two things going on. First, there's the fascination and the seduction of it, but the second thing is me saying, I wonder why? I mean, I wonder what cultural picture this is painting that attracts me? What's different about it from other things? So I'm always doing that kind of examination anyway.
For now, he seems to be spreading himself across a number of individual media, including audio/visual/tactile installations (the recent Self Storage project with Laurie Anderson) and even the rock star charity gala (War Child). As far as music is concerned, he has recently returned to producing new albums by such major league players as U2 and David Bowie, and has just finished work on Spinner, a collaboration with bass player Jah Wobble which updates the music Eno produced for the Derek Jarman film Glitterbug (all projects which he showed little interest in discussing, as it turned out).
The interview took place at Eno's West London studio in July. I arrived at 10am, but he had already been there for four hours and seemed to be working on several unrelated projects simultaneously. The room, like its occupant, was neatly minimal and humming with emphatic potential 'stuff'. Two computers opposed one another across the space - these he later used to show me the numerous self-generating pictures he is working on. Notes, diagrams, paper cut-outs and CDs were strewn about. Prior to the interview, Eno proposed an excursion to the local record shop. He wanted to purchase the extended mix of Donna Summer's "State Of Independence", which, he says, ranks as one of the high points of 20th century art. Eno spent most of the interview lying back on a couch with his eyes closed - at times I felt like his analyst.
Paul Schutze: William Gibson has often gone on record, particularly recently, as being the unwilling prophet of virtual reality. You seem in a sense to be in a slightly similar position, as something like the Alvin Toffler of futurist aesthetics. Is it something you want to spend a huge amount of time doing - predicting the future for people - or would you rather be making it?
Brian Eno: Well, they actually amount to the same thing, in many ways. In making it, you start to imagine it as well. I have always asked questions about why I get fascinated by something that I'm doing, or that somebody else is doing, so there's two things going on. First, there's the fascination and the seduction of it, but the second thing is me saying, I wonder why? I mean, I wonder what cultural picture this is painting that attracts me? What's different about it from other things? So I'm always doing that kind of examination anyway.