Brian Eno – Reflection (Warp)

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First out of the gate for 2017 is Brian Eno and his latest in a series of ambient music releases that dates back at least 40 years.

Following up 2016’s The Ship, Reflection consists of one 54 minute track of electronic music produced “generatively”, which means, according to the press release accompanying the CD, that the music makes itself.

Eno explains thus, “My job as a composer is to set in one place a group of sounds and phrases, and then some rules which decide what happens to them. I then set the whole system playing and see what it does, adjusting the sounds and the phrases and the rules until I get something I’m happy with”.

Its an interesting concept, but what does it sound like?

Reflection begins with sounds approximating ring tones “popping” from one speaker to the next, their tones extending and the piece progresses, eventually creating multiple layers. Occasionally various sounds emerge and disappear, one sounding like a bird tweeting at random moments. Eventually, what sounds like a church organ joins in.

At first the music is fairly loud, but eventually it pulls back, becoming more “ambient” in the process.

How one relates to the music depends on the environment in which it is played and also its volume. I played Reflection while reading, while driving and while just puttering around the house and I found it was most interesting while driving…something about the quasi-space age sounds playing in the bubble-like atmosphere of my car made me feel somewhat futuristic and ultra-modern.

Reading the liner notes to the physical version of Reflection, I see that, “a generative version of this album is also available to download on the App Store”. So, apparently, different versions of the music are generated each time Eno hits “record”, or, in his words, “because those rules are probabilistic, the piece unfolds differently every time it is activated”.

Pretty cool. I can’t say that I’ll be needing more than one version of this, but it did make for a fine way to start 2017.

Marty Duda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml1Rv4vqZyc

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