Watch Videos for 10 Songs on Brian Eno’s Brand New Album, FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE

Those who have only casu­al­ly appre­ci­at­ed Bri­an Eno’s music may not think of him as a singer. Giv­en that his best-known solo record­ing Music for Air­ports not only has no lyrics but con­tains few rec­og­niz­able instru­ments, that per­cep­tion makes a cer­tain amount of sense. Still, it’s incor­rect: in fact, Eno has a great enthu­si­asm for singing, and indeed he has cred­it­ed the prac­tice with devel­op­ing “a good fig­ure, a sta­ble tem­pera­ment, increased intel­li­gence, new friends, super self-con­fi­dence, height­ened sex­u­al attrac­tive­ness and a bet­ter sense of humor” — though that last is sure­ly on dis­play in the remark itself.

Though Eno may still be most wide­ly con­sid­ered a pio­neer or pop­u­lar­iz­er of ambi­ent music, a lis­ten through his discog­ra­phy will reveal how well his singing skills have served him for near­ly half a cen­tu­ry now. Released just last month, his new album FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE marks a return to lyri­cal songs, a form he has­n’t prac­ticed on an album since 2005’s Anoth­er Day on Earth.

As the now-74-year-old Eno says in its press mate­ri­als, “My voice has changed, it’s low­ered, it’s become a dif­fer­ent per­son­al­i­ty I can sing from. I don’t want to sing like a teenag­er.” And “as for writ­ing songs again — it’s more land­scapes, but this time with humans in them.” He’s been describ­ing his music and art this way for quite some time: here on Open Cul­ture, we’ve even fea­tured a 1989 doc­u­men­tary about it called Imag­i­nary Land­scapes.

Judg­ing by some of FOREVERAN­DE­V­ER­NOMORE’s lyrics, not to men­tion its title, the land­scapes he per­ceives seem to have become frag­ile; none of them, per­haps, are now espe­cial­ly long for exis­tence. That impres­sion may well be under­scored by the three song videos col­lect­ed in this playlist, “Gar­den of Stars,” “We Let It In,” and “There Were Bells.” Each has its own style: the first is kalei­do­scop­ic, the sec­ond is ver­bal, and the third is a full-fledged live shoot fea­tur­ing Eno and his broth­er-col­lab­o­ra­tor Roger per­form­ing amid the ruins of the Acrop­o­lis of Athens. Giv­en Eno’s pen­chant for con­cepts nov­el, expan­sive, and con­tra­dic­to­ry, one might call the sen­si­bil­i­ty of this lat­est album a kind of opti­mistic Ozy­man­di­an­ism.

Below you can also watch a playlist of ani­mat­ed tracks (or “visu­al­iz­ers”) for ten songs on the new album.

via Boing­Bo­ing
Relat­ed con­tent:

The Bri­an Eno Discog­ra­phy: Stream 29 Hours of Record­ings by the Mas­ter of Ambi­ent Music

Ambi­ent Kyoto: Bri­an Eno Stages His First Large-Scale Exhi­bi­tion in Japan

When David Bowie & Bri­an Eno Made a Twin Peaks-Inspired Album, Out­side (1995)

Decon­struct­ing Bri­an Eno’s Music for Air­ports: Explore the Tape Loops That Make Up His Ground­break­ing Ambi­ent Music

Hear Bri­an Eno Sing The Bea­t­les’ “Tomor­row Nev­er Knows” as Part of The Best Live Album of the Glam/Prog Era (1976)

Bri­an Eno Lists the Ben­e­fits of Singing: A Long Life, Increased Intel­li­gence, and a Sound Civ­i­liza­tion

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.