Additional information:
All Compositions By Brian Eno Except
1/1 Who Was Co-Composed By Robert Wyatt
(Who Also Played Acoustic Piano On This Track)
Engineered By David Hutchins,Conny Plank,Rhett
Davies
Musicians:
1:Brian Eno Electric Piano,synthesizer
Robert Wyatt piano
2,3:Brian Eno syntesizer
Christa Fast,
Christine Gomez,
Inge Zeininger Vocals
4:Brian Eno synthesizer
Note: Song Durations On The Lp Are Different, This
Is The Listing Of The Lp:
1.- 1/1 16:30
2.- 2/1 8:20
3.- 1/2 11:30
4.- 2/2 6:00
Liner Notes:
AMBIENT MUSIC
The concept of music designed specifically as a background feature in the environment
was pioneered by Muzak Inc. in the fifties, and has since come to be known generically
by the term Muzak. The connotations that this term carries are those particularly
associated with the kind of material that Muzak Inc. produces - familiar tunes arranged
and orchestrated in a lightweight and derivative manner. Understandably, this has led
most discerning listeners (and most composers) to dismiss entirely the concept of
environmental music as an idea worthy of attention.
Over the past three years, I have become interested in the use of music as ambience,
and have come to believe that it is possible to produce material that can be used thus
without being in any way compromised. To create a distinction between my own experiments
in this area and the products of the various purveyors of canned music, I have begun
using the term Ambient Music.
An ambience is defined as an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint. My
intention is to produce original pieces ostensibly (but not exclusively) for particular
times and situations with a view to building up a small but versatile catalogue of
environmental music suited to a wide variety of moods and atmospheres.
Whereas the extant canned music companies proceed from the basis of regularizing
environments by blanketing their acoustic and atmospheric idiosyncracies, Ambient Music
is intended to enhance these. Whereas conventional background music is produced by
stripping away all sense of doubt and uncertainty (and thus all genuine interest) from
the music, Ambient Music retains these qualities. And whereas their intention is to
'brighten' the environment by adding stimulus to it (thus supposedly alleviating the
tedium of routine tasks and levelling out the natural ups and downs of the body rhythms)
Ambient Music is intended to induce calm and a space to think.
Ambient Music must be able to accomodate many levels of listening attention without
enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.
BRIAN ENO
September 1978
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