Brian Eno Has Some Actual Good News
Rain noises for sleeping, chill beats for studying, spacey melodies for getting stoned: The ecosystem of sounds known as ambient music excels at blocking out the world. But Brian Eno, the man who named the genre, has spent a life recording songs that reflect the reality around him. In the 1970s, the drab bustle of an airport terminal and the ruckus of New York City helped inspire him to use then-novel synthesizer technology to paint pastoral soundscapes: the yin to the yang of modern life.
On the new album FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE, the 74-year-old Eno now reacts to the global climate crisis—and uses his own voice for urgent purposes. Blending ambient music and operatic pop for his first vocals-driven solo album in 17 years, he croons about ominous visions in a tone that’s notably lower than he sounded in his early days as a rock-and-roll front man. “I found a new voice, and with it a new way to sing,” Eno wrote in an email after we chatted on Zoom last month. “And with that, a new set of feelings that suddenly became singable … regret mixed with joy, or melancholy with resignation.”
On a , Eno—whose résumé also includes playing keyboards in Roxy. (Last year, he founded EarthPercent, a nonprofit to make the music industry greener.) Bespectacled and sporting a neat, white beard, he also fulfilled his reputation as an artist-intellectual, pausing after each question before giving a considered, forceful answer.
