joeschmo said:<i>The endless praise for SAW2 is a bit of a mystery to me. It's great ambient for sure, but hardly revolutionary considering that Eno had done something allmost similar - and much better - ten years before</i>
It's just a beautiful record. It sounds like dreaming.
I don't think it really is that similar to Eno, other than the fact that it's mostly beatless, atmospheric music. I couldn't name one Eno album that actually sounds like SAW II. I always remember David Toop citing Another Green World when SAW II came out, and at the time I hadn't heard Another Green World. When I finally got around to it, I was surprised to find it was barely even "ambient"--AGW is so much louder and more rhythm-based, there are only one or two floaty tracks on it really.
Agreed. I think the reason he was getting compared to Eno was due to lack of any other people to compare to. SAWII is way different to Eno. In fact, it kicks Eno's balding little ass. Some people can invent talent, others are born with it. SAWII remains one of the greatest recordings of the 20th century.
Talking about 'sounding like dreaming', the big thing about it was that he claimed that the album was composed by lucid dreaming. He reckoned he could control his dreams and slept in the studio so he could get the music down before he forgot it. The reason its not very rhythm-heavy is cos he didn't have any beats in his dreams, just melodies and atmospheres. Probably a bit of hype, cos he was always good at thinking up things to titilate the journos, but still a nice concept.
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