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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Obscure and beautiful, 4 Sep 2001
By A Customer
Many readers will know Brian Eno from his work with global superstars U2. There are other, parallel sides to Brian's musical work, and 'Discreet Music' is the first example of a particular strand of experimentation. First released in Britain in 1975 on his own Obscure Records label, it was an attempt to set up a system by which the music would evolve itself over time, with relatively little compositional or instrumental input from the composer, other than to set the muscal and technical parameters of the piece and pressing 'Go'....'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.....
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yoga for the mind, 19 Mar 2007
It could be argued that there's not much to this record; the first piece comprises a pair of tape loops drifting in and out of phase, but actually contains as much silence as tones (technically, it's done on a single piece of tape, but it's in stereo after all, and sounds like a pair of instruments responding to each other). The second suite is a piece by Pachabel played by a string quartet, with each part played to a different timing, causing the instruments to drift in and out of phase with each other.
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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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely Stunning, 3 Sep 2007
Music like this is hard to come by, but Eno seems to churn it out at roughly the same rate as he does carbon dioxide. If I am not mistaken this is the album from which Ambient originated, Eno's first experiments with its form, here manipulating orchestral arrangments to absolutely stunning effect, as on the three "Canon in D Major" peices, or the subtly beauty of the title track, which is possibly the first Ambient peice Ever.
This is also my other favorite of the Eno Ambient albums, (The other being Apollo) bcause what it lacks in the avant-guarde experimantalism of his later albums, it more than makes up for in absolute beauty. You will rarely experience something as good as this, it is rare that I find a peice of music that actually defies words, but this does more than any other.
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