Brian Peter George Eno (/ˈiːnoʊ/ born 15 May 1948) is an English musician, songwriter,record producer, visual artist, and activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions toambient music andelectronica, and for producing, recording, and writing works inrock andpop music.[1] A self-described "non-musician", Eno has helped introduce unconventional concepts and approaches to contemporary music.[1][2] He has been described as one ofpopular music's most influential and innovative figures.[1][3] In 2019, he was inducted into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member ofRoxy Music.[4]
Brian Peter George Eno was born on 15 May 1948 in the village ofMelton, Suffolk, England, the son of William Arnold Eno (1916–1988), a postal worker and clock and watch repairer,[14] and Maria Alphonsine (née Buslot; 1922–2005),[15] a Belgian national.[16] His grandfather was a multi-instrumentalist who played thesaxophone andbassoon whilst he built and repairedpianos andchurch organs.[17] Eno is the eldest of three children; he has a brother,Roger, and sister Arlette. They have a half-sister, Rita, from their mother's previous relationship.[18] The surname Eno is derived from theHuguenot surname Hennot.[16] Along with the rest of the family, in particular the parents, he was raisedCatholic.[19][† 1]
I like melancholy and have never found it to be the same thing as moroseness or sadness. I've always enjoyed being melancholy, perhaps because that mood is very much a feature of the environment where I grew up. It's a very bleak place and most visitors find it quite miserable. I don't think it's miserable but it's definitely a sort of lost place in a lost time – nothing has changed in this part of England for many hundreds of years.
By 1964, after earning fourO-levels, including in art and mathematics, Eno had developed an interest in art and music and had no interest in a "conventional job".[24] He enrolled at theIpswich School of Art, taking on the newly established Groundcourse foundation art degree established bynew media artistRoy Ascott.[25] Here, one of Eno's teachers was artistTom Phillips, who became a lifelong friend and encouraged his musical ability. Phillips recalled the pair doing "piano tennis" in which, after collecting pianos, the two stripped and aligned them in a hall and struck them with tennis balls.[26] In 1966, Eno studied for a diploma in Fine Arts at theWinchester School of Art, from which he graduated in 1969.[27][28] At Winchester Eno once attended a lecture by futureWho guitaristPete Townshend, also a former student of Ascott's; he cites this as the moment when he realised he could make music without formal training.[21]
Whilst at school, Eno used atape recorder as a musical instrument[29] and in 1964 he joined his first group, the Black Aces, a four-piece with Eno on drums, that he formed with three friends he met at the youth club he visited in Melton.[30] In late 1967, Eno pursued music once more, forming the Merchant Taylor's Simultaneous Cabinet, anavant-garde music, art, and performance trio with two Winchester undergraduates.[31] This was followed by short stints in multiple avant-garde and college groups, including The Maxwell Demon and Dandelion and The War Damage which featured Eno as frontman who adopted a theatrical persona on stage and later played the guitar.[24][32]
In 1969, after separating from his wife, Eno moved to London, where his professional music career began. He became involved with theScratch Orchestra and thePortsmouth Sinfonia; Eno's first appearance on a commercially released recording is theDeutsche Grammophon edition ofThe Great Learning (1971) byCornelius Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra, which features Eno as one of the voices on the track "Paragraph 7".[33] Another early recording was the soundtrack toBerlin Horse (1970), a nine-minuteavant-garde art film byMalcolm Le Grice.[34][35] At one point, Eno had to earn money as paste-up assistant for the advertisement section of a local paper for three months. He quit and became an electronics dealer by buying old speakers and making new cabinets for them before selling them to friends.[24]
In 1971, Eno co-formed theglam rock bandRoxy Music following a chance meeting with saxophonistAndy Mackay.[36] Eno later said: "If I'd walked ten yards further on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now".[37] Eno played on their first two albums,Roxy Music (1972) andFor Your Pleasure (1973), on which he is credited mononymously as "Eno". On the records, Eno was noted as playing theEMS VCS 3 synthesiser, whilst also being credited for tape effects, backing vocals, and production. Initially, Eno did not appear on stage at their live shows, but operated the group'smixing desk at the centre of the concert venue where he had a microphone to sing backup vocals. After the group secured a record deal, Eno joined them on stage playing the synthesiser and became known for his flamboyant, androgynous costumes and makeup, partly stealing the spotlight from lead singerBryan Ferry.[24] After the tour in support ofFor Your Pleasure ended in mid-1973, Eno quit the band, citing disagreements with Ferry.[38]
Almost immediately after his exit from Roxy Music, Eno embarked on his solo career. In 1973, he released(No Pussyfooting), a collaboration withKing Crimson guitaristRobert Fripp. The album had been worked on for over a year, particularly with the use of tape looping and delay systems, which would later be known as "Frippertronics". The record is hailed as being groundbreaking for future developments indrone and what would later be termedambient music. The pair followed their debut withEvening Star (1975) and completed a European tour before Fripp temporarily retired from music.
Eno's first solo studio album,Here Come the Warm Jets, was recorded the same year and released in February 1974. The album notably features Fripp's guitar playing on several songs. The album was critically acclaimed on initial reviews[39] and came to be regarded as a classic.[40] No singles were released from the record.
In March 1974, he released the single "Seven Deadly Finns" with the B-side "Later On", his only top 40 hit in the UK. Eno andKevin Ayers contributed music for the experimental/spoken word albumLady June's Linguistic Leprosy (1974) by poetJune Campbell Cramer, whilst also producing the Portsmouth Sinfonia's 1974 albumsPlays the Popular Classics andHallelujah! The Portsmouth Sinfonia Live at the Royal Albert Hall, both of which feature Eno playing clarinet. After recording it in September that year, Eno released his second solo studio album,Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), in November 1974. Featuring fellow artists and collaborators such asPhil Collins,Phil Manzanera,Robert Wyatt andAndy Mackay, the album featured numerous efforts ofart pop androck, but distanced itself from thepsychedelic qualities ofHere Come the Warm Jets.Taking Tiger Mountain contains the track "Third Uncle", which has been regarded as one of Eno's best-known songs of his pop and rock phase, owing in part to its later cover byBauhaus. CriticDave Thompson wrote that the song is "a nearpunk attack of riffing guitars and clattering percussion" which "could, in other hands, be aheavy metal anthem, albeit one whose lyrical content would tongue-tie the most slavishair guitarist."[41] "Third Uncle" was released as a single in France that year, with the B-side of "The Fat Lady of Limbourg", also fromTaking Tiger Mountain.
Between 1974 and 1975, Eno began to write new material for a third solo studio album. Within this time, in January 1975, Eno was hit by ataxi cab while crossing the street and spent several weeks recuperating and room-ridden at home. During this time, one of Eno's closest friends and fellow artistJudy Nylon had brought him a record of 18th century harp music. After she had left, he put on the record and lay down. He then realised that he had set the amplifier to a very low volume, and one channel of the stereo was not working, but he lacked the energy to get up and correct it.[42] Immediately following a full recovery, he began to experiment with several instruments and tools inIsland Studios (now known as Basing Street Studios). Between July and August 1975, he had recorded what would becomeAnother Green World. The album was released on 14 November 1975 but did not chart in either the United Kingdom or the United States. The album predominantly featured instrumental tracks, with notable fragments ofminimalism andavant-garde tensing throughout the 40 minute record. Those that had featured vocals, such as "Everything Merges With The Night", "St. Elmo's Fire" and "Golden Hours" were met with praise. The track "Zawinul / Lava" is a homage and tribute to Austrianjazz fusion keyboardist and composerJoe Zawinul. The only song to have any single release was "I'll Come Running", which became the B-side to Eno's cover of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)". The album has been recognised by critics as a "universally acknowledged masterpiece"[43] and "breathtakingly ahead of its time".[44] The acclaimed music journalistRobert Christgau rated the album as an "A+", stating that it was "theaural equivalent of a park on theMoon; oneness withnature under conditions ofartificial gravity".[45]
In 1975 Eno released theminimalist-electronic recordDiscreet Music (1975), created with an elaborate tape-delaymethodology which he diagrammed on the back cover of the LP. Considered to be a landmark of theambient music genre and the first record of Eno's to feature hisfull name, the album only features four tracks, one of which is the 30-minute long "Discreet Music", which features synthesisedtape delays by Eno on an echo configuration.Gavin Bryars and The Cockpit Ensemble co-arranged and performed the B-side of the record, which were three variations onCanon in D Major byJohann Pachelbel. The titles of the variations were of an inaccurate translation of theFrench cover notes for the “Erato” recording of the piece made by the orchestra ofJean Francois Paillard.[46] The album was remarked as a favourite record ofDavid Bowie and, as a result of the record and its recognition to Bowie, it had led to his collaboration with Eno on Bowie'sBerlin Trilogy.[47]
AfterDiscreet Music Eno released two other experimental-electronic albums: theFripp-collaboratedEvening Star (1975) and theRoedelius-Moebius collaboratedCluster & Eno (1977). In December 1977 he releasedBefore and After Science, which featured electronic and artistic rock compositions with vocals. It was touted, byAllmusic reviewer David Ross Smith, as "a study of "studio composition" whereby recordings are created by "deconstruction and elimination".[48] Compared toAnother Green World's nineinstrumental tracks,Before and After Science only features two instrumental tracks, "Energy Fools The Magician", and "Through Hollow Lands", a track dedicated toHarold Budd.Before and After Science is perhaps best known for its heavily acclaimed electric-keyboard based track "By This River" and "King's Lead Hat", a homage toTalking Heads.
In 1977 Eno assistedDavid Bowie andTony Visconti for Bowie's albumLow. It was during these sessions that he began work on his next solo project, released in 1978 as the first of hisAmbient series,Ambient 1: Music for Airports. He coined the term "ambient music",[49] which is designed to modify the listener's perception of the surrounding environment. In the liner notes accompanying the record, he wrote: "Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular, it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."[50] The following records after the release ofAmbient 1 and the subsequent series inclusions wereThe Plateaux of Mirror (Ambient 2) featuringHarold Budd,Day of Radiance (Ambient 3) with American composerLaraaji, andOn Land (Ambient 4), a solo record.
Eno provided a film score forHerbert Vesely'sEgon Schiele – Exzess und Bestrafung (1980), also known asEgon Schiele – Excess and Punishment. The ambient-style score was an unusual choice for an historical piece, but it worked effectively with the film's themes of sexual obsession and death. Before Eno madeAmbient 4: On Land (1982),Robert Quine played himMiles Davis' "He Loved Him Madly" from the 1974 albumGet Up with It. Eno stated in the liner notes forOn Land, "Teo Macero's revolutionary production on that piece seemed to me to have the 'spacious' quality I was after, and likeFederico Fellini's 1973 filmAmarcord, it too became a touchstone to which I returned frequently."[51]
In September 1992, Eno releasedNerve Net, an album utilising heavily syncopated rhythms with contributions from several former collaborators including Fripp,Benmont Tench,Robert Quine andJohn Paul Jones ofLed Zeppelin fame. This album was a last-minute substitution forMy Squelchy Life, which contained more pop oriented material, with Eno on vocals.[55] Several tracks fromMy Squelchy Life later appeared on 1993's retrospective box setEno Box II: Vocals, and the entire album was eventually released in 2014 as part of an expanded re-release ofNerve Net. Eno releasedThe Shutov Assembly in 1992, recorded between 1985 and 1990. This album embracesatonality and abandons most conventional concepts ofmodes,scales andpitch. Emancipated from the constant attraction towards thetonic that underpins the Westerntonal tradition, the gradually shifting music originally eschewed any conventional instrumentation, save for treated keyboards.[56][failed verification]
During the 1990s, Eno worked increasingly with self-generating musical systems, the results of which he calledgenerative music. This allows the listener to hear music that slowly unfolds in almost infinite non-repeating combinations of sound.[57] In one instance of generative music, Eno calculated that it would take almost 10,000 years to hear the entire possibilities of one individual piece. Eno achieves this through the blending of several independent musical tracks of varying length. Each track features different musical elements and in some cases, silence. When each individual track concludes, it starts again re-configuring differently with the other tracks. He has presented this music in his own art and sound installations and those in collaboration with other artists, includingI Dormienti (The Sleepers),Lightness: Music for the Marble Palace, andMusic for Civic Recovery Centre.[58]
In 1993, Eno worked with the Manchester rock bandJames to produce two albums,Laid andWah Wah.Laid was met with notable critical and commercial success both in the UK and the United States after its release in 1993.Wah Wah, in comparison, received a more lukewarm response after its release in 1994.[59]
In 2004, Fripp and Eno recorded another ambient music collaboration album,The Equatorial Stars.
Eno returned in June 2005 withAnother Day on Earth, his first major album sinceWrong Way Up (withJohn Cale) to prominently feature vocals (a trend he continued withEverything That Happens Will Happen Today). The album differs from his 1970s solo work due to the impact of technological advances on musical production, evident in its semi-electronic production.
In early 2006, Eno collaborated with David Byrne again, for the reissue ofMy Life in the Bush of Ghosts in celebration of the influential album's 25th anniversary. Eight previously unreleased tracks recorded during the initial sessions in 1980/81, were added to the album.[62]An unusual interactive marketing strategy was employed for its re-release, the album's promotional website features the ability for anyone to officially and legally download themulti-tracks of two songs from the album, "A Secret Life" and "Help Me Somebody". This allowed listeners toremix and upload new mixes of these tracks to the website for others to listen and rate them.
In late 2006, Eno released77 Million Paintings, a program of generative video and music specifically for home computers. As its title suggests, there is a possible combination of 77 millionpaintings where the viewer will see different combinations of video slides prepared by Eno each time the program is launched. Likewise, the accompanying music is generated by the program so that it's almost certain the listener will never hear the same arrangement twice. The second edition of "77 Million Paintings" featuring improved morphing and a further two layers of sound was released on 14 January 2008. In June 2007, when commissioned in theYerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California,Annabeth Robinson (AngryBeth Shortbread) recreated77 Million Paintings inSecond Life.[63]
TheNokia 8800 Sirocco Edition mobile phone, released in late 2006, features exclusive ringtones and sounds composed by Eno.[64] Although he was previously uninterested in composing ringtones due to the limited sound palette of monophonic ringtones, phones at this point primarily used audio files.[65] Between 8 January 2007 and 12 February 2007, ten units of Nokia 8800 Sirocco Brian Eno Signature Edition mobile phones, individually numbered and engraved with Eno's signature, were auctioned off. All proceeds went to two charities chosen by Eno: the Keiskamma AIDS treatment program and theWorld Land Trust.[66] Eno's music was featured in amovie adaption ofIrvine Welsh's best-selling collectionEcstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance (2007). He also appeared playing keyboards inVoila,Belinda Carlisle's solo album sung entirely in French. Eno also contributed a composition titled "Grafton Street" toDido's third album,Safe Trip Home, released in November 2008.[67]
In 2008, he releasedEverything That Happens Will Happen Today with David Byrne, designed the sound for the video gameSpore[68] and wrote a chapter toSound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture, edited by Paul D. Miller (a.k.a.DJ Spooky).
In June 2009, Eno curated the Luminous Festival atSydney Opera House, culminating in his first live appearance in many years. "Pure Scenius" consisted of three live improvised performances on the same day, featuring Eno, Australian improvisation trioThe Necks,Karl Hyde fromUnderworld, electronic artistJon Hopkins and guitaristLeo Abrahams. Eno scored the music forPeter Jackson's film adaptation ofThe Lovely Bones, released in December 2009.[69]
Eno released another solo album onWarp in late 2010.Small Craft on a Milk Sea, made in association with long-time collaborators Leo Abrahams andJon Hopkins, was released on 2 November in the United States and 15 November in the UK.[70] The album included five compositions[71] that were adaptions of those tracks that Eno wrote forThe Lovely Bones.[72] He later releasedDrums Between the Bells,[73] a collaboration with poetRick Holland, on 4 July 2011. In November 2012, Eno releasedLux, a 76-minute composition in four sections, through Warp.[74]
In April 2014, Eno sang on, co-wrote, and co-producedDamon Albarn'sHeavy Seas of Love, from his solo debut albumEveryday Robots.[76] In May, Eno and Underworld's Karl Hyde releasedSomeday World, featuring various guest musicians: from Coldplay'sWill Champion and Roxy Music'sAndy Mackay to newer names such as 22-year-oldFred Gibson, who helped produce the record with Eno.[77] Within weeks of that release, a second full-length album was announced titledHigh Life. This was released on 30 June 2014.[78]
In January 2016, a new Eno ambient soundscape was premiered as part ofMichael Benson's planetary photography exhibition "Otherworlds" in the Jerwood Gallery of London's Natural History Museum. In a statement Eno commented on the unnamed half-hour piece:
We can't experience space directly; those few who've been out there have done so inside precarious cocoons. They float in silence, for space has no air, nothing to vibrate – and therefore no sound. Nonetheless we can't resist imagining space as a sonic experience, translating our feelings about it into music. In the past we saw the universe as a perfect, divine creation – logical, finite, deterministic – and our art reflected that. The discoveries of the Space age have revealed instead a chaotic, unstable and vibrant reality, constantly changing. This music tries to reflect that new understanding.
The Ship, an album with music from Eno's installation of the same name was released on 29 April 2016 onWarp.[79] The album notably features actorPeter Serafinowicz providing vocal credits on the third part of the "Fickle Sun" suite, which is a cover ofthe Velvet Underground's "I'm Set Free", from the group's 1969 album,The Velvet Underground; the track was written byfrontmanLou Reed. In September that same year, the Portuguese synthpop bandThe Gift, released a single entitledLove Without Violins. As well as singing on the track, Eno co-wrote and produced it. The single was released on the band's own record label La Folie Records on 30 September.[80]
Eno'sReflection, an album of ambient, generative music, was released on Warp Records on 1 January 2017. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for 2018's 60th Grammy awards ceremony.[81][82] He also released a collaborative album withTom Rogerson, titledFinding Shore (2017), throughDead Oceans.[83]
In 2019, Eno participated inDAU, an immersive art and cultural installation in Paris by Russian film directorIlya Khrzhanovsky evoking life underSovietauthoritarian rule. Eno contributed sixauditory ambiances.[85]
In March 2020, Eno and his brother,Roger Eno, released their collaborative albumMixing Colours.[86] Eno provided original music forBen Lawrence's 2021 documentaryIthaka aboutJohn Shipton's battle to save his son,Julian Assange.[87] In October 2022, he released a mostly voice-based album calledForeverandevernomore.[88] An instrumental version of the record, entitled theForever Voiceless Edition, was released in April 2023. The singleMaking Gardens Out of Silence in the Uncanny Valley, which replaced the concluding track on the original release ofForeverandevernomore on theJapanese version of the CD, was released in February 2023. In May 2023, he released a collaborative album with long-time colleague and protegeFred again.. calledSecret Life throughFour Tet's labelText Records.[89] In June the same year, he released a collaborative single withThe Leisure Society called 'Brave Are The Waves' onWillkommen Records.[90] His workEnough was nominated for the Best Contemporary SongIvor Novello Award on Thursday 23 May 2024.[91] In March 2025, he released a new solo albumAurum exclusive to Apple Music.[92] In June 2025, he released two new collaborative albumsLuminal andLateral withBeatie Wolfe onVerve Records.[93] On 10 October 2025, their third collaborative album,Liminal, is set to be released.[94]
Eno has consistently described himself as a "non-musician", using the term "treatments" to describe his modification of the sound of musical instruments, and to separate his role from that of the traditional instrumentalist. His skill in using the studio as a compositional tool[95] led in part to his career as a producer. His methods were recognised at the time (mid-1970s) as unique, so much so that onGenesis'sThe Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, he is credited with 'Enossification'; onRobert Wyatt'sRuth Is Stranger Than Richard with aDirect inject anti-jazz raygun and onJohn Cale'sIsland albums as simply being "Eno".
Eno has contributed to recordings by artists as varied asNico,Robert Calvert,Genesis,David Bowie, andZvuki Mu, in various capacities such as use of his studio and electronic treatments, vocals, guitar, bass guitar, and under amononymousstage name (Eno). In 1984, he (amongst others) composed and performed the "Prophecy Theme" for theDavid Lynch filmDune; the rest of thesoundtrack was composed and performed by the groupToto. Eno producedperformance artistLaurie Anderson'sBright Red album, and also composed for it. Eno played on David Byrne's musical score forThe Catherine Wheel, a project commissioned byTwyla Tharp to accompany her Broadway dance project of the same name.He worked with Bowie as a writer and musician on Bowie's influential 1977–79Berlin Trilogy of albums,Low,"Heroes" andLodger, on Bowie's later albumOutside, and on the song "I'm Afraid of Americans". Playing a portableEMS Synthi A synthesiser, Eno created most of the spacey effects onLow.[96] AfterBowie died in January 2016, following the release of hisBlackstaralbum, Eno said that he and Bowie had been talking about takingOutside, the last album they had worked on together, "somewhere new", and expressed regret that they would not be able to pursue the project.[97]
In 1978, Eno discovered and promoted theno wave movement by attending a five night underground no wave music festival atArtists Space in New York City that featured ten local bands, includingthe Gynecologists, Communists,Theoretical Girls, Terminal, Chatham's Tone Death (performing his composition for electric guitarsGuitar Trio)[98] and Branca's other band Daily Life.[99][100] The final two days of the show featuredDNA and theContortions on Friday, followed byMars andTeenage Jesus and the Jerks on Saturday.[100] Eno, who had originally come to New York to produce the secondTalking Heads albumMore Songs About Buildings and Food, was impressed by what he saw and heard, and advised byDiego Cortez to do so, was convinced that this movement should be documented and proposed the idea of a compilation album,No New York, with himself as a producer.
In 2007, Eno produced the fourth studio album byColdplay,Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, released in 2008 to acclaim. In 2008, he worked withGrace Jones on her albumHurricane, and was credited for "production consultation" and as a member of the band, playing keyboards, treatments and background vocals. He worked on the 12 studio album byU2, again with Lanois,No Line on the Horizon. It was recorded in Morocco, the South of France and Dublin and released in Europe on 27 February 2009.
In 2011, Eno and Coldplay reunited and Eno contributed "enoxification" and additional composition on Coldplay's fifth studio album,Mylo Xyloto, released on 24 October.
The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, "Here's a specific problem – solve it."
The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional," this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said "and it must be3+1⁄4 seconds long."[† 2]
I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.
In fact, I made eighty-four pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.[102]
Eno shed further light on the composition of the sound on theBBC Radio 4 showThe Museum of Curiosity, admitting that he created it using aMacintosh computer, stating "I wrote it on a Mac. I've never used aPC in my life; I don't like them."[103]
Eno has spoken of an early and ongoing interest in exploring light in a similar way to his work with sound. He started experimenting with the medium of video in 1978. Eno describes the first video camera he received, which would initially become his main tool for creating ambient video and light installations:
"One afternoon while I was working in the studio withTalking Heads, the roadie fromForeigner, working in an adjacent studio, came in and asked whether anyone wanted to buy some video equipment. I'd never really thought much about video, and found most 'video art' completely unmemorable, but the prospect of actually owning a video camera was, at that time, quite exotic."[105]
ThePanasonic industrial camera Eno received had significantdesign flaws preventing the camera from sitting upright without the assistance of a tripod. This led to his works being filmed in vertical format, requiring the television set to be flipped on its side to view it in the proper orientation.[106] The pieces Eno produced with this method, such asMistaken Memories of Mediaeval Manhattan (1980) andThursday Afternoon (1984) (accompanied by the album of the same title), were labelled as 'Video Paintings.' He explained that he refers to them as 'video paintings' because "if you say to people 'I make videos', they think ofSting's new rock video or some really boring, grimy 'Video Art'. It's just a way of saying, 'I make videos that don't move very fast."[107]
These works presented Eno with the opportunity to expand his ambient aesthetic into a visual form, manipulating the medium of video to produce something not present in the normal television experience. His video works were shown around the world in exhibitions in New York and Tokyo, as well as released on the compilation 14 Video Paintings in 2005.[108]
Eno continued his video experimentation through the 80s, 90s and 2000s, leading to further experimentation with the television as a malleable light source and informing his generative works such as77 Million Paintings in 2006.[109]
Eno gives the example ofwind chimes. He says that these systems and the creation of them have been a focus of his since he was a student: "I got interested in the idea of music that could make itself, in a sense, in the mid 1960s really, when I first heard composers likeTerry Riley, and when I first started playing with tape recorders."[110]
Initially Eno began to experiment with tape loops to creategenerative music systems. With the advent of CDs he developed systems to make music of indeterminate duration using several discs of material that he'd specifically recorded so that they would work together musically when driven by random playback.[111]
In 1995, he began working with the company Intermorphic to create generative music through utilising programmed algorithms. The collaboration with Intermorphic led Eno to releaseGenerative Music 1 - which requires Intermorphic'sKoan Player software for PC. The Koan software made it possible for generative music to be experienced in the domestic environment for the first time.[citation needed]
In 1996, Eno collaborated in developing the SSEYOKoan generative music software system (by Pete Cole and Tim Cole of Intermorphic) that he used in composingGenerative Music 1—only playable on the Koan generative music system. Further music releases using Koan software include:Wander (2001) andDark Symphony (2007).[citation needed]
Eno started to release excerpts of results from his 'generative music' systems as early as 1975 with the albumDiscreet Music. Then again in 1978 withMusic for Airports:
Music for Airports, at least one of the pieces on there, is structurally very, very simple. There are sung notes, sung by three women and myself. One of the notes repeats every 23 1/2 seconds. It is in fact a long [recorded tape] loop running around a series of tubular aluminum chairs in Conny Plank's studio. The next lowest loop repeats every 25 7/8 seconds or something like that. The third one every 29 15/16 seconds or something. What I mean is they all repeat in cycles that are called incommensurable – they are not likely to come back into sync again. So this is the piece moving along in time. Your experience of the piece of course is a moment in time, there. So as the piece progresses, what you hear are the various clusterings and configurations of these six basic elements. The basic elements in that particular piece never change. They stay the same. But the piece does appear to have quite a lot of variety. In fact it's about eight minutes long on that record, but I did have a thirty minute version which I would bore friends who would listen to it. The thing about pieces like this of course is that they are actually of almost infinite length if the numbers involved are complex enough. They simply don't ever re-configure in the same way again. This is music for free in a sense. The considerations that are important, then, become questions of how the system works and most important of all what you feed into the system.
— Brian Eno, Generative Music: A talk delivered in San Francisco, June 8, 1996[112]
The list below consists of albums, soundtracks and downloadable files that contain excerpts from some of Eno's generative music explorations:[citation needed]
Several of the released excerpts (listed above) originated as, or are derivative of, soundtracks Eno created for art installations. Most notablyThe Shutov Assembly (viewbreakdown of Album's sources),Contra 1.2 thru toCompact Forest Proposal,Lux,CAM, andThe Ship.[citation needed]
This sectionmay betoo long and excessively detailed. Please consider summarising the material.(May 2019)
Eno has created installations combining artworks and sound that have shown across the world since 1979, beginning with 2 Fifth Avenue and White Fence, in the Kitchen Centre,New York, NY.[115] Typically Eno's installations feature light as a medium explored in multi-screen configurations, and music that is created to blur the boundaries between itself and its surroundings:
With each installation, Eno's music and artworks interrogate the visitors' perception of space and time within a seductive, immersive environment.[116][117] Since his experiments with sound as an art student using reel to reel tape recorders,[118] - and in art employing the medium of light,[119] Eno has utilised breakthroughs in technology to develop 'processes rather than final objects', processes that in themselves have to "jolt your senses," have "got to be seductive."[120] Once set in motion these processes produce potentially continuous music and artworks that Eno, though the artist, could not have imagined;[121] and with them he creates the slowly unfolding immersive environments of his installations.
Early installations benefitted from breakthroughs in video technology that inspired Eno to use the TV screen as a monitor and enabled him to experiment with the opposite of the fast-moving narratives typical of TV to create evolving images with an almost imperceptible rate of change. "2 Fifth Avenue", ("a linear four-screen installation with music from Music For Airports") resulted from Eno shooting "the view from his apartment window: without ... intervention," recording "what was in front of the camera for an unspecified period of time ... In a simple but crude form of experimental post production, the colour controls of the monitors on which the work was shown were adjusted to wash out the picture, producing a high-contrast black and white image in which colour appeared only in the darkest areas. ... Eno manipulated colour as though painting, observing: 'video for me is a way of configuring light, just as painting is a way of configuring paint.'"[122]
From the outset, Eno's video works, were "more in the sphere of paintings than of cinema".[123] The author and artistJohn Coulthart calledMistaken Memories of Medieval Manhattan (1980–81), which incorporated music fromAmbient 4: On Land (1982), "The first ambient film." He explains: "Eno filmed several static views of New York and its drifting cloudscape from his thirteenth-floor apartment in 1980–81. The low-grade equipment ... give[s] the images a hazy, impressionistic quality. Lack of a tripod meant filming with the camera lying on its side so the tape had to be re-viewed with a television monitor also turned on its side."[124] And turning the TV on its side, says David A. Ross, "recontextualize[d] the television set, and ... subliminally shift[ed] the way the video image represents recognizable realities ... Natural phenomena like rain look quite different in this orientation; less familiar but curiously more real."[125]
Eno in 2012
Thursday Afternoon (1985) was a return to using figurative form, for Eno had by now begun "to think that I could use my TVs as light sources rather than as image sources. ... TV was actually the most controllable light source that had ever been invented – because you could precisely specify the movement and behaviour of several million points of coloured light on a surface.."[126] Turning the TV on its back, Eno played video colour fields of differing lengths of time that would slowly re-combine in different configurations. Placingziggurats (3 dimensional constructions) of different lengths and sizes on top of the screens that defined each separate colour field, these served to project the internal light source upward. "The light from it was tangible as though caught in a cloud of vapour. Its slowly changing hues and striking colour collisions were addictive. We sat watching for ages, transfixed by this totally new experience of light as a physical presence."[127] Calling these light sculptures Crystals (first shown in Boston in 1983), Eno further developed them for the Pictures of Venice exhibition at Gabriella Cardazzo's Cavallino Gallery (Venice,1985). Placing plexiglass on top of the structures he found that these further diffused the light so the shapes outlined through this surface appeared to be described differently in the slowly changing fields of light.[128]
By positioning sound sources in different places and different heights in the exhibition room Eno intended that the music would be something listened to from the inside rather than the outside. For theI Dormienti show in 1999 that featured sculptures of sleeping figures byMimmo Paladino in the middle of the circular room, Eno placed speakers in each of the 12 tunnels running from it.
Envisioning the speakers themselves as instruments, led to Eno's 'speaker flowers' becoming a feature of many installations, including at the Museo dell' Ara Pacis (Rome, 2008), again with Mimmo Paladino and 'Speaker Flowers and Lightboxes' atCastello Svevo in Trani (Italy 2017). Re-imagining the speaker as a flower with a voice that could be heard as it moved in the breeze, he made 'bunches' of them, "sculptural objects [that] ... consist of tiny chassis speakers attached to tall metal stands that sway in response to the sound they emit."[129] The first version of these were shown at theStedelijk Museum inAmsterdam(1984). SinceOn Land (1982), Eno has sought to blur the boundaries between music and non-music and incorporates environmental sounds into his work. He treats synthesised and recorded sounds for specific effects.[130]
In the antithesis of 20th centuryshock art, Eno's works create environments that are: "Envisioned as extensions of everyday life while offering a refuge from its stresses."[131] Creating a space to reflect was a stated aim in Eno's Quiet Club series (1986–2001) of installations that have shown across the world, and includeMusic for Civic Recovery Centre at theDavid Toop curated Sonic Boom festival at theHayward Gallery in 2000. The Quiet Club series grew from Eno's site-specific installations that included the Place series (1985–1989). These also featured light sculptures and audio with the addition of conventional materials, such as "tree trunks, fish bowls, ladders, rocks". Eno used these in unconventional ways to create new and unexpected experiences and modes of engagements, offering an extension of and refuge from, everyday life.[132]
The continually flowing non-repeating music and art of Eno's installations militate againsthabituation to the work and maintain the visitors' engagement with it. "One of the things I enjoy about my shows is...lots of people sitting quietly watching something that has no story, few recognisable images and changes very slowly. It's somewhere between the experience of painting, cinema, music and meditation...I dispute the assumption that everyone's attention span is getting shorter: I find people are begging for experiences that are longer and slower, less "dramatic" and more sensual."[133] Tanya Zimbardo writing on New Urban Spaces Series 4. "Compact Forest Proposal" for SF MOMA (2001) confirms: "During the first presentation of this work, as part of the exhibition 010101: Art in Technological Times at SFMOMA in 2001, visitors often spent considerable time in this dreamlike space."[134]
In Eno's work, both art and music are released from their normal constraints. The music set up to randomly reconfigure is modal and abstract rather than tonal, and so the listener is freed from expectations set up by Western tonal harmonic conventions.[135] The artworks in their continual slowly shifting combinations of colour (and in the case of 77 Million Paintings image re-configurations) themselves offer a continually engaging immersive experience through their unfolding fields of light.
Developments in computer technology meant that the experience of Eno's unending non-repeatablegenerative art and music was no longer only possible in the public spaces of his exhibitions. With software developer and programmer Jake Dowie, Eno created a generative art/music installation77 Million Paintings for the domestic environment.[136] Developed for both PC and Mac, the process is explained by Nick Robertson in the accompanying booklet. "One way to approach this idea is to imagine that you have a large box full of painted components and you are allowed to blindly take out between one and four of these at any time and overlay them to make a complete painting. The selection of the elements and their duration in the painting is variable and arbitrarily determined…"[137]Most (nearly all) of the visual 'elements' were hand-painted by Eno onto glass slides, creating an organic heart to the work. Some of the slides had formed his earlierNatural Selections exhibition projected onto the windows of theTriennale in Milan. (1990). This exhibition marked the beginning of Eno's site specific installations that re-defined spaces on a large scale.[138]
For the Triennale exhibition, Eno with Rolf Engel and Roland Blum at Atelier Markgraph,[139] used new technology by Dataton[140] that could be programmed to control the fade up and out times of the light sources.[141] But, unlike the software developed for77 Million, this was clumsy and limited the practical realisation of Eno's vision.
With the computer programmed to randomly select a combination of up to four images of different durations, the on screen painting continually reconfigures as each image slowly dissolves whilst another appears. The painting will be different for every viewer in every situation, uniquely defining each moment. Eno likens his role in creating this piece to one of a gardener planting seeds. And like a gardener he watches to see how they grow, waiting to see if further intervention is necessary.[142] In the liner notes Nick Robertson explains: "Every user will buy exactly the same pack of 'seeds' but they will all grow in different ways and into distinct paintings, the vast majority of which, the artist himself has not even seen. …The original in art is no longer solely bound up in the physical object, but rather in the way the piece lives and grows."[137]
Although designed for the domestic environment,77 Million Paintings has been (and continues to be) exhibited in multi-screen installations across the world. It has also been projected onto architectural structures, including the sails of theSydney Opera House (2009),Carioca Aqueduct (the Arcos di Lapa) Brazil (2012) and the giantLovell Telescope at theJodrell Bank Observatory (2016). During an exhibition at Fabrica Brighton, (2010) the orthopaedic surgeon Robin Turner noticed the calming effect the work had on the visitors.[143] Turner asked Eno to provide a version for the Montefiore hospital in Hove. Since then77 Million and Eno's latest "Light Boxes" have been commissioned for use in hospitals.[144]
In 2013, Eno created two permanent light and sound installations at Montefiore Hospital in Hove, East Sussex, England.[145] In the hospital's reception area "77 Million Paintings for Montefiore" consists of eight plasma monitors mounted on the wall in a diagonally radiating flower-like pattern. They display an evolving collage of coloured patterns and shapes whilst Eno's generative ambient music plays discreetly in the background. The other aptly named "Quiet Room for Montefiore" (available for patients, visitors and staff) is a space set apart for meditative reflection. It is a moderately sized room with three large panels displaying dissolves of subtle colours in patterns that are reminiscent of Mondrian paintings. The environment brings Eno's ambient music into focus and facilitates the visitors' cognitive drift, freeing them to contemplate or relax.
Eno composed most of the music for theElectronic Arts video gameSpore (2008), assisted by his long-term collaborator, the musician and programmerPeter Chilvers. Much of the music is generative and responsive to the player's position within the game.
Inspired by possibilities presented to Eno and Chilvers whilst working together on the generative soundtrack for the video gameSpore (2008), the two began to release generative music in theApple App format. They set up the website generativemusic.com and created generative music applications for theiPhone,iPod Touch, andiPad:
In 2009, Chilvers and Sandra O'Neill also created an App entitledAir (released through generativemusic.com as well)—based on concepts developed by Eno in hisAmbient 1: Music for Airports album.[146]
The generative version ofReflection is the fourth iOS App created by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers: of generativemusic.com. Unlike other Apps they releasedReflection provides no real options other than Play/Pause – later, in its initial update,AirPlay and Sleep Timer options were added. As Apple had started increasing prices for Apps sold in UK, they lowered its price. For those who'd bought the app at a higher price, Eno and Chilvers provided links to a free download of a four track album called 'Sisters' (each track with a 15:14 duration). The following appears on the app's Apple iTunes page:
As a result of the Brexit-related fall in value of the British pound Apple have increased the prices of all apps sold in the UK by 25%. While we always intended REFLECTION to be a premium priced app, we feel this increase makes it too expensive, so we will take the hit in order to keep the British price to the consumer at its original level.
In other territories this decision will translate into a reduced price for the app.
As a thank you to everyone who has supported the REFLECTION app, we are adding a free surprise downloadable gift to it for a limited time. To access it, simply update REFLECTION in the App Store and follow the instructions when you open the app on your device. The download will be available until 28th February [2017].[147] and the App's Apples iTunes page[148]
Previous to the updates for the App, the iTunes page used the following from Eno.
Reflection is the most recent of my Ambient experiments and represents the most sophisticated of them so far.
My original intention with Ambient music was to make endless music, music that would be there as long as you wanted it to be. I wanted also that this music would unfold differently all the time – 'like sitting by a river': it's always the same river, but it's always changing. But recordings – whether vinyl, cassette or CD – are limited in length, and replay identically each time you listen to them. So in the past I was limited to making the systems which make the music, but then recording 30 minutes or an hour and releasing that. Reflection in its album form – on vinyl or CD – is like this. But the app by which Reflection is produced is not restricted: it creates an endless and endlessly changing version of the piece of music.
The creation of a piece of music like this falls into three stages: the first is the selection of sonic materials and a musical mode – a constellation of musical relationships. These are then patterned and explored by a system of algorithms which vary and permutate the initial elements I feed into them, resulting in a constantly morphing stream (or river) of music. The third stage is listening. Once I have the system up and running I spend a long time – many days and weeks in fact – seeing what it does and fine-tuning the materials and sets of rules that run the algorithms. It's a lot like gardening: you plant the seeds and then you keep tending to them until you get a garden you like.[149]
The version ofReflection available on the fixed formats (CD, Vinyl and download File) consists of two (joined) excerpts from theReflection app. This was revealed in Brian's interview with Philip Sherburne:
[Philip Sherburne] Given the infinite nature of the Reflection project, was it difficult to select the 54-minute chunk that became the album?
[Brian Eno] Yes, it was quite interesting doing that. When you're running it as an ephemeral piece, you have quite different considerations. If there is something that is a bit doubtful or odd, you think, OK, that's just in the nature of the piece and now it's passed and we're somewhere else. Whereas if you're thinking of it as a record that people are going to listen to again and again, what philosophy do you take? Choose just a random amount of time? Could have done that. Just do several of them and fix them together? Is that faking it? These are very interesting philosophical questions.
[Philip Sherburne] Which approach did you follow?
[Brian Eno] A hybrid approach. I generated 11 pieces of the length I'd set the piece to be and I had them all in my iTunes on random shuffle, so I would be listening at night, doing other things, and as one ran through, I would think, That was a nice one, I particularly like the second half. So then I would make a note. I did this for quite a few evenings. There were two that I really liked. On one, the last 40 minutes of it were lovely, and on another, the first 25 minutes of it were really nice. So I thought, This is a studio, I'm making a record. I'll edit them together! It was like the birth of rock'n'roll. I'm allowed to do that! It's not cheating. It was quite a bit of jiggery-pokery to find a place I could do it, but the result is two pieces stuck together.
— Philip Sherburne / Brian Eno, A Conversation With Brian Eno About Ambient Music[150]
Eno's "light boxes" utilise advances inLED technology that has enabled him to re-imagine his ziggurat light paintings - and early light boxes as featured inKite Stories (1999) - for the domestic environment. The light boxes feature slowly changing combinations of colour fields that draw attention differently to the shapes outlined by delineating structures within. As the paintings slowly evolve each passing moment is defined differently, drawing the viewer's focus into the present moment. The writer and cultural essayistMichael Bracewell writes that the viewer "is also encouraged to engage with a generative sensor/aesthetic experience that reflects the ever-changing moods and randomness of life itself". He likens Eno's art to "Matisse or Rothko at their most enfolding."[151]
First shown commercially at thePaul Stolper Gallery in London (forming theLight Music exhibition in 2016 that included lenticular paintings by Eno),[152] light boxes have been shown across the world. They remain in permanent display in both private and public spaces. Recognised for their therapeutic contemplative benefits, Eno's light paintings have been commissioned for specially dedicated places of reflection including in Chelsea and Westminster hospital, the Montefiore Hospital in Hove and a three and a half metre lightbox for the sanctuary room in the Macmillan Horizon Centre in Brighton.
Eno started theObscure Records label in Britain in 1975 to release works by lesser-known composers. The first group of three releases included his own composition,Discreet Music, and the now-famousThe Sinking of the Titanic (1969) andJesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971) byGavin Bryars. The second side ofDiscreet Music consisted of several versions of Germanbaroque composerJohann Pachelbel'sCanon, the composition which Eno had previously chosen to precede Roxy Music's appearances on stage and to which he applied various algorithmic transformations, rendering it almost unrecognisable. Side one consisted of atape loop system for generating music from relatively sparse input. These tapes had previously been used as backgrounds in some of his collaborations with Robert Fripp, most notably onEvening Star. Ten albums were released on Obscure, including works byJohn Adams,Michael Nyman, andJohn Cage.
ProfessorNigel Osborne and Brian Eno in 1995, leading music workshops at the Pavarotti Centre inMostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina[153]
In 1995, Eno travelled withEdinburgh University's ProfessorNigel Osborne to Bosnia in the aftermath of theBosnian War, to work with war-traumatised children, many of whom had been orphaned in the conflict. Osborne and Eno ledmusic therapy projects run byWar Child in Mostar, at the Pavarotti centre, Bosnia 1995.[153]
Eno appeared as Father Brian Eno at the "It's Great Being a Priest!" convention, in "Going to America", the final episode of the television sitcomFather Ted, which originally aired on 1 May 1998 onChannel 4.[154]
In March 2008, Eno collaborated with the Italian artistMimmo Paladino on a show of the latter's works with Eno's soundscapes at Ara Pacis in Rome, and in 2011, he joined Stephen Deazley and Edinburgh University music lecturer Martin Parker in anIcebreaker concert atGlasgow City Halls, heralded as a "long-awaited clash".[155]
In 2013, Eno sold limited edition prints of artwork from his 2012 albumLux from his website.[156][157]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic, Eno told theLos Angeles Times in January 2021 that he was working on a project with a group of developers to create an audio-video conferencing software, as anopen source alternative to programs likeZoom.[162] Although the software has never emerged,Open Culture described it in August 2021 as simply "one of any number of projects he's kicking around at any given time".[163]
What Art Does is a 2025 book by Eno andBette Adriaanse that examines the role of art in society and its impact on human experience. The book discusses themes such as collective creativity, the accessibility of artistic expression, and the relationship between art and emerging technologies.[168]
Eno first found prominence providingkeyboards andtape recorders inRoxy Music. He later moved on toambient music. According to Linda Kohanov ofAllMusic, Eno "was in part striving to create music that approximated the effect of visual art." According to Jason Ankeny, also ofAllMusic, "Eno champions theory over practice, serendipity over forethought, and texture over craft."[1][175]
Eno is frequently referred to as one of popular music's most influential artists.[176] Producer and film composerJon Brion has said: "I think he's the most influential artist sincethe Beatles."[177] Critic Jason Ankeny atAllMusic argues that Eno "forever altered the ways in which music is approached, composed, performed, and perceived, and everything frompunk totechno tonew age bears his unmistakable influence."[1] Eno has spread his techniques and theories primarily through his production; his distinctive style informed projects in which he has been involved, including Bowie's "Berlin Trilogy" (helping to populariseminimalism) and the albums he produced for Talking Heads (incorporating, on Eno's advice, African music and polyrhythms), Devo, and other groups. Eno's first collaboration with David Byrne, 1981'sMy Life in the Bush of Ghosts, utilisedsampling techniques and broke ground by incorporatingworld music into popular Western music forms.[178][179] Eno andPeter Schmidt'sOblique Strategies have been used by many bands, and Eno's production style has proven influential in several general respects: "his recording techniques have helped change the way that modern musicians;– particularly electronic musicians;– view the studio. No longer is it just a passive medium through which they communicate their ideas but itself a new instrument with seemingly endless possibilities."[180] According toVinyl Me, Please writer Jack Riedy, Eno's peak as an artist coincided with thealbum era – a period in popular music during which the album surpassed the single as the dominant recorded-music format – "and Eno took full advantage of the format to pursue all his musical ideas on wax."[181]
Whilst inspired by the ideas of minimalist composers including John Cage, Terry Riley,Steve Reich andErik Satie,[182] Eno coined the term ambient music to describe his own work and defined the term. The Ambient Music Guide states that he has brought from "relative obscurity into the popular consciousness" fundamental ideas about ambient music, including "the idea of modern music as subtle atmosphere, as chill-out, as impressionistic, as something that creates space for quiet reflection or relaxation."[180] His groundbreaking work inelectronic music has been said to have brought widespread attention to and innovations in the role of electronic technology in recording.[182]Pink Floyd keyboardistRick Wright said he "often eulogised" Eno's abilities.[183]
Eno's "unconventional studio predilections", in common with those ofPeter Gabriel, were an influence on the recording of "In the Air Tonight", the single which launched the solo career of Eno's former drummerPhil Collins.[184] Collins said he "learned a lot" from working with Eno.[185] BothHalf Man Half Biscuit (in the song "Eno Collaboration" on the EP of thesame name) andMGMT have written songs about Eno.LCD Soundsystem has frequently cited Eno as a key influence. The Icelandic singerBjörk also credited Eno as a major influence.[186]
Mora sti Fotia (Babies on Fire), one of the most influential Greek rock bands, was named after Eno's song "Baby's on Fire" from the 1973 albumHere Come the Warm Jets.[187]
In September 2016, asked by the website Just Six Degrees to name a currently influential artist, Eno cited the conceptual, video and installation artistJeremy Deller as a source of current inspiration: "Deller's work is often technically very ambitious, involving organising large groups of volunteers and helpers, but he himself is almost invisible in the end result. I'm inspired by this quietly subversive way of being an artist, setting up situations and then letting them play out. To me it's a form of social generative art where the 'generators' are people and their experiences, and where the role of the artist is to create a context within which they collide and create."[189]
FilmmakerGary Hustwit made a documentary about Eno in 2024.[190] TitledEno, the movie is different at each showing as a computer program called "Brain One" (an anagram of Brian Eno) randomly selects elements from 30 hours of interviews about Eno, and 500 hours of archival footage to deliver a unique, about 90 minute show. It is thus the first-ever theatrically released "generative" documentary feature film.[190][191]
Eno has married twice. In March 1967, at the age of 18, Eno married Sarah Grenville. The couple had a daughter, Hannah Louise (b. 1967), before their divorce in the 1980s.[192] In 1988, Eno married his then-manager Anthea Norman-Taylor. They have two daughters, Irial Violet (b. 1990) and Darla Joy (b. 1991).[193][194] Per a May 2020 interview with Michael Bonner ofUncut referencing his current girlfriend, Eno and Norman-Taylor may have separated or divorced at an unspecified juncture. Longtime friend Ray Hearn currently serves as Eno's manager.[195]
RaisedCatholic, Eno has referred to himself as "kind of anevangelical atheist" but has also professed an interest in religion.[196] In 1996, Eno and others started theLong Now Foundation to educate the public about the very long-term future of society and to encouragelong-term thinking in the exploration of enduring solutions to global issues.[197]
In 2017, Eno signed an open letter as a member of theLabour Party and has stated that voting for the Liberal Democrats is "voting Tory without admitting it".[200][201] In August 2015, he endorsedJeremy Corbyn'scampaign in theLabour Party leadership election. He said at a rally inCamden Town Hall: "I don't think electability really is the most important thing. What's important is that someone changes the conversation and moves us off this small-minded agenda."[202] He later wrote inThe Guardian: "He's [Corbyn] been doing this with courage and integrity and with very little publicity. This already distinguishes him from at least half the people in Westminster, whose strongest motivation seems to have been to get elected, whatever it takes."[203]
In 2013, Eno became a patron ofVidere est Credere (Latin: "to see is to believe"), a UK human rights charity.[209] Videre describes itself as "give[ing] local activists the equipment, training and support needed to safely capture compellingvideo evidence ofhuman rights violations. This captured footage is verified, analysed and then distributed to those who can create change."[210] He participates alongside movie producersUri Fruchtmann andTerry Gilliam and executive director of Greenpeace UKJohn Sauven.[211]
Eno was appointed President ofStop the War Coalition in 2017. He has had a long involvement with the organisation since it was set up in 2001.[212]
In November 2019, along with other public figures, Eno signed a letter supporting Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn describing him as "a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergentfar-right nationalism,xenophobia andracism in much of thedemocratic world" and endorsed him for in the2019 UK general election.[215] In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, he signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and theplanet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."[216][217]
In April 2021, Eno was a participant in the "Live for Gaza", online concert which was held in April. 2021 Artists from Gaza included Gaza's first rock groupOsprey V, Wafaa Alnjeili, and Badeel Band.[218][219]
Brian Eno is an early and prominent member ofDemocracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) where he contributes, issues statements, and takes part in media events and discussions.[220][221]
Eno organized and performed at theTogether for Palestine benefit concert atWembley Arena in London. The event raised over $2.0 million for Palestinian charities.[225]
^"If you grow up in a very strong religion like Catholicism you certainly cultivate in yourself a certain taste for the intensity of ideas. You expect to be engaged with ideas strongly whether you are for or against them. If you are part of a religion that very strongly insists that you believe then to decide not to do that is quite a big hurdle to jump over. You never forget the thought process you went through. It becomes part of your whole intellectual picture."Paul Morley (16 January 2010)."On gospel, Abba and the death of the record: an audience with Brian Eno".The Guardian.
^The eventual length of The Microsoft Sound as supplied and used was roughly 6 seconds, not3+1⁄4.
^Steven Grant: Brian Eno Against Interpretation. Trouser Press, August 1982. Quoted in Brian Eno: Visual Music: Learning from Eno, Steven Dietz p.298.ISBN978-1-4521-0849-0
^Eno, Brian."The Big Here and Long Now". Archived fromthe original on 23 December 2005. Retrieved11 May 2009.How could you live so blind to your surroundings? ... I called it "The Small Here" ... I was used to living in a bigger Here ... I noticed that this very local attitude to space in New York paralleled a similarly limited attitude to time ... I came to think of this as "The Short Now", and this suggested the possibility of its opposite – "The Long Now".
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