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'Discreet Music' is a piece lasting about 25 minutes. Brian takes two complementary musical phrases, played on a synthesiser, and loops them through his tape delay lines. The two fragments then come and go against each other indefinitely, creating new and unexpected juxtapositions, like cloud formations, before fading slowly away. If this simply idea sounds boring, listen to the music. One reviewer at the time said that it sounded like the dreamwaves of a sleeping computer. And this captures the gentle, harmonious quality of the music perfectly. As soothing as water lapping gently at the shore, 'Discreet Music' has apparently become a great favourite for mothers-to-be while in labour.
While I haven't had that experience, I can say that this music, which I first bought as a teenager in the 70s, has travelled the world with me and even now is never far from a stereo of some kind. Despite the knowing jokiness of the 'Obscure' label, this is a piece of conceptual music which succeeds first and foremost as music. The idea is great: the music even better. The second side of the album, also included on the CD release, takes a slightly different approach to the same idea, where the 'input' in this case is described as fragments from Pachelbel's 'Canon' (you'll know it) and arranged for a string quartet. A strict compositional framework gives interesting - and always listenable - results.
Brian Eno has gone on to explore what he termed 'self generating' music on a number of other releases, including, 'On Land', 'Thursday Afternoon' and 'Neroli', and latterly via software-generated pieces using the KOAN programme. Although each is different, there is a coherence of texture and stylistic tone which affirms the strength of the original idea.
And if it's chill-out music you're after, there is none better.....
So, in actual fact, Brian Eno isn't really even on the recording, so why am I rating "his" work so highly? Simply put, the result of his grand design is a pair of pieces of extreme beauty. The sparse and minimalist sounds have both a fascination - in as much as I am always wanting to hear what comes next - and a quality of inducing extreme relaxation. Frankly, if I put this on at night, I'm likely to drift off to sleep before the first piece finishes; it's so minimal that I rarely get to hear it!
So what's the point of buying a record that you're not necessarily going to listen to? Well, besides the beauty of the sounds, it's not often that a non-chemical can create such profound feeling of relaxation - it's like yoga for the mind. Subsequently imitated, but never in my opinion bettered, this is so good that it makes it onto my Desert Island list.
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