On Second Thought
Brian Eno - Music for Airports

By: Dave McGonigle
2004-07-13



Posted 07/13/2004 - 03:52:38 AM by IanMathers:
 Dave: Write more. Please.
 
Posted 07/13/2004 - 01:03:25 PM by BryanNeil:
 Wonderful piece of writing. And I love the album too.
 
Posted 07/13/2004 - 01:22:59 PM by Nick_S:
 The 18th century harp music story is the story in the liners to "Discreet Music" isn't it? Yes it was how he came to the idea of ambient music, but his first true ambient piece was "Discreet Music." I also think Brian Eno tends to acknowledge his Satie influence. And I agree with Ian... write more!
 
Posted 07/13/2004 - 02:05:25 PM by hometapes:
 what about a Cluster 71 mention? something Eno was well-versed in...
 
Posted 07/13/2004 - 02:36:30 PM by MacGee:
 Ta for the comments; up town, top ranking. A couple of specific replies - Nick_S: yup, the harp story is in the liner notes to Discreet Music, but I remembered it from David Toop's wonderful 'Ocean of Sound' (those that have read the book will notice the gargantuan debt that I owe Toop for this piece; sincerest form of flattery, and all that). I chose Satie and Cage for this piece merely because I knew most about them and think they're fun to play around with, Satie in particular (when you are tired of writing about Satie, you are tired of writing...). If I could have taken the piss out of Steve Reich (whose 'it's gonna rain' and other tape experiments were big influences on Brian the Brain), I would have. hometapes: I don't know much about Cluster 71, apart from the album they made with Eno. But consider them mentioned. NB - to my knowledge, Brian has never said 'doh!'. I made that bit up.
 
Posted 07/16/2004 - 06:34:40 PM by Nick_S:
 Dave: When I said the bit about Satie I was referring to your "Isn't it weird that no-one's done it before?" comment... I was trying to say that Eno *was* aware of his precedents. As for K/Cluster... I'm not sure that Eno was really that "well-versed" in them per se. And I'm not sure that their 1971 release was really that important to Eno's ideologies...I think the two are pretty different and Eno's ideas are more congruent with "Musique D'Ameublement" than "Cluster 71"... Who knows though... I just know that their album "Zuckerzeit" was the one which prompted Eno to seek them out for a collaborative album.
 
Posted 07/17/2004 - 05:15:07 PM by Nick_S:
 Whoa... I just realized that my reply sounds really bitchy! Whoops... that wasn't my intention at all. :-) Sorry folks.
 
Posted 07/19/2004 - 01:02:55 PM by MacGee:
 Hi Nick_S. For the record, it dunt sound bitchy 2 me. And you're right: Eno is far too smart and far too well versed in the history of music to believe that he was solely responsible for the dawn of modern ambient music. It was just more fun writing it that way....;-)