Eno

[luka]

I'm torn really between a desire to wind Paddy up and on the other hand, a fair bit of sympathy for his position

 

[luka]

There's more depth, in Eno at his best than in for example, thingy, that other guy we were talking about.

 

[luka]

The 4th world guy. What's his name?

 

[luka]

Don't get angry with me Padraig. I'm on the vodkas. Just play along.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

go read the things people credit him for - it's totally fucking crazy. "changing the way we approach art" kind of thing.

ambient? Satie, Cage, Riley, Tangerine Dream and Popul Vuh, and all manner of less heralded NWW/Creel Pone biz

the studio as instrument? Phil Spector, the Beatles/George Martin, Czukay, Miles/Ted Macero, all beat him to the punch there

and most of them, as well as dudes like Tubby and Lee Perry, beat him to sampling in popular music

if Eno was located in various 70s "scenius" I would be fine with it - that's he true, he was one among a legion of innovators

I'm pushing back against the almost uniform - not here, but in general - idea of him as lone seminal multidisciplinary figure

an idea he perpetuates and always has

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

The 4th world guy. What's his name?

Jon Hassell

there was a thread about him

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I think ambient music is nazism for woke liberals honestly

I do always cite this as the birth point of the modern conception of ambient music

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Eno is very gesamtkunstwerk

everything since Duchamp is a readymade, etc

 

[luka]

and yet on land is a real achievement

 

[luka]

It sounds like none of the artists you've mentioned. It has its own weight and atmosphere. And he did it. And it's good. And it's even profound in its own way.not an attractive man but someone who made something good. One very good album. One More than most people.

 

[luka]

You could probably compare him to lynch in that this is indubitably a square, very much a square, and very much a careerist, not a radical or an innovator, but playing a specific role in seeding the mainstream with more outre ideas

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

It sounds like none of the artists you've mentioned

well, that's not true. On Land sounds very much like Tangerine Dream pre-sequencers, the first couple Popol Vuh records, etc

whether or not it's "good" is a personal opinion and of course yours is as valid as mine, which is obviously different

but it certainly isn't unique or possessed of its own unique atmosphere more than anything is

it's very much of a piece with mid-late 70s analog electronics or going back further, his obvious influences in musique concrete

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

that he's a popularizer of outre, avant-garde ideas in more mainstream popular music is certainly true, tho

 

[luka]

Well of course I disagree. I think on land is what it presents as. Inhabiting a landscape. Not a psychic landscape a material one. With geese. And that lends it its own space and atmospherics.

 

[luka]

You can feel the cold and the physical space and isolation and the damp and so forth. I've listened to all this stuff, as we all have, and I think it's distinct.

 

[luka]

You can feel the soft turf underfoot and the hear the wind through the reeds. It's concerned with place as opposed to regions of the mind

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I mean, you can disagree but if you have a real familiarity with what I'm talking about, it sounds of a piece with its time and influences

if you want something that was truly unique at the time, look at Metal Machine Music

 

[luka]

Popol Vu, which I enjoy, is, for me, very much an interior landscape with the leaks and troughs and plateaus of emotional and psychic states. And this is an important distinction

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

but they're not actual distinctions

or, they're all valid in terms of your individual reaction

but how do you sonically distinguish between an interior and psychic landscape? you can't, it's just your feelings

the actual sounds are alike

no two things are literally the same thing. it's of a piece with his contemporaries - or predecessors actually, since they were first (and better IMO).

 

[luka]

I disagree with that because as I've argued at some length over the years I don't think this is subjective.

Whether it's 'good' or not is subjective, but not the associations and resonances in play