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Rating:
DISCREET MUSIC, LOW-KEY. This is the translation of Eno's '75 album.
An amazing, eclectic, experimental album, almost excessively creative. After reading for the first time a review in a music magazine where a list of the top 100 albums chosen as inspiration by the artists of this album was made, I was left with an incredible curiosity like I had never experienced before. After quite some difficulty, I managed to get a copy and finally listen to it. Well, I was shocked, fascinated, captivated. For the first time in history, the music that is the protagonist of an album became simply a background. To truly understand the project from which it was born, I documented myself, and once I had the overall vision, I was completely struck!
The album consists of 4 tracks: the first, "discreet music" is an endless circular intro of 35 minutes... you always think something is about to happen and instead... nothing happens! It is ethereal, it creeps into the environment and cradles whatever you are doing. It is the firstborn of ambient music... the kind that would become perfect in "Music for Airports," a wonderful album from '78. As stated in the album's guide, the music Eno wanted to create is not something that needs to be listened to: it is a musical background to life. It's what you hear without listening, a simple musical background to make silence less boring. That's it!!!! The other 3 tracks are three variations on Pachelbel's Canon... a deconstruction of this and a rearrangement with synthesizers to create three different versions... a sort of shuffled cards from which something different emerges in each track. The transition from "Discreet Music" to the first variation is a punch: suddenly, the variation emerges from the background, like a storm for the ear now accustomed and relaxed!!!! Altogether, it is a phenomenal record. Certainly not for everyone, but this can be seen as an advantage!
Definitely an album to recommend to anyone who wants to treat themselves to an hour of pure listening and relaxation. A phenomenal album!
Iant
Tracklist and Videos
02 Three Variations on the "Canon in D Major" by Johann Pachelbel, I: Fullness of Wind (09:57)
03 Three Variations on the "Canon in D Major" by Johann Pachelbel, II: French Catalogues (05:18)
04 Three Variations on the "Canon in D Major" by Johann Pachelbel, III: Brutal Ardour (08:16)
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Other reviews
By DanteCruciani
Brian Eno didn’t know that that day, immobilized in bed, he had witnessed the birth of the so-called ambient music.
Discreet Music: sounds that exist to enable us to listen to silence.
By R13569920
‘Eno ends up adding a conscious expressive form to the palette of research music.’
‘I know few people able to truly listen to thirty minutes of ambient music, but maybe it is precisely this that ultimately justifies Brian Eno.’
By noveccentrico
Discreet Music operates on a discreetly pentatonic solution... played with an EMS, stuck by Eno into a pair of Revox that went round and round.
Ah, when they tell you it’s new age music, strike with little discretion.
