Manafonistas

„Enoesque“ doesn’t necessarily mean, that the artists do know Eno’s music very well, some do, some don’t. The word means that a certain record contains, consciously, unconsciously, or even by pure chance, elements that can be perceived as, well, Eno-related, in an obvious or hidden way. Strangeness is a rare thing. And, for sure, sometimes critics use the term for music they don’t understand at all :)

The word has become another word for „weird“, „exotic“, „melodic with a strange twist“, „minimal, but with emotional impact“, „uncommon“. And, yes, quite often, the word is linked to compositions of artists who may even have no idea who Eno really is, maybe, because they are too young, or too old, or simply not interested. So, read this with a smile, but be sure, some of these artists know his Ambient Music rather well, believe me! And that leaves traces. Moments. Ideas. Sounds. Sometimes sounds on the verge of falling apart. And sometimes, yeah, sometimes, nothing at all.

1) Eivind Aarset w/ Jan Bang: Dream Logic

Eclecticism can be so inventive. Music to get lost in. Brian’s defintion of „Where am I-music“ fully realized. And a brilliant extension of a lost classic of Ambient Music, Michael Brook’s „Infinite guitar“-playing on „Hybrid“. That milestone once was created in the famous Grant Avenue Studios in Hamilton, Ontario. The producers: Brian and Daniel. The golden years. And now this: „Dream Logic“ is the kind of album critics will attest an „almost hallucinatoric“ quality – and they are right! One of the best albums of 2012 recurring on traditions where many others only offer cheap pastiche!

2) Jon Hassell: Power Spot

The only ECM opus with the direct involvement of Brian Eno, Eno/Lanois create another masterpiece! Dreamscapes made of electronica, minimalism, Asian and African influences.

3) David Darling: Cello

I knew Brian would love this solo-cello work, when I send it to him in the  early Nineties. Slow Music with cellos overlapping and delayed sounds. Drifting  in circles – and moving skywards!

4) Steve Tibbetts – Marc Anderson: Northern Song

Produced by ECM – mastermind Manfred Eicher within two days in Oslo. Guitar and percussion and a lot of silences that never sound sacred  – but always arresting! Tibbetts‘ fear: not enough notes. But then he remembered the  passion with which he has listened to Eno’s „Music for  Airports“ – and knew everything was okay!

5) Eleni Karainrou: Music for Films

Manfred Eicher chose the title as hommage to Eno’s „Music For Films“. When hearing the record, Eno fell in love with the textures, the melodies, the recurrimg themes.

6) Jon Hassell: Last Night The Moon Came …

Okay, Eno’s old friend again, this  time without Brian. But with Eivind Aarset and Jan Bang among others. See: number one! Amazing and endlessly subtle. Will not be continued, the Norwegian connection. Sad ending. Pasttime paradise. 

7) Arvo Pärt: Alina

Pärt at his most minimal, and that is to say something. Compare the spacious piano notes of these pieces that can easily be linked to his „tintinnabuli“ style, with those piano and keyboard figures Robert Wyatt plays on „Music for Airports“, or Roger Eno plays on „Thursday Afternoon“. „Alina“ is sparse, and some would even say simple, but it’s personal and human and at times nearly devastating.

8) Hans Otte: Buch der Klänge

The German composer of new classical piano music was tired of the loss of deep feeling in his scene. He changed that by creating this simple and profound music. Beautiful in a never-ending way!

9) Bill Connors: Swimming With A Hole In My Body

Lost gem of the late Seventies, solo guitar album with lots of space, and sounds floating; even the title and the cover are enoesque; Bill Connors was obviously tired of further following scientologist Chick Corea to the Seventh Galaxy!

10) Terje Rypdal: After The Rain

Very quiet solo work by Terje Rypdal. The guitarist even plays instruments he can not play very well – sounds like he used some „oblique strategies“ from  Brian’s game: „Honour thy errors as hidden intentions“.

P.S.: It may not be fair to call Heiner Goebbels‘ album „SHADOW / Landscape With Argonauts“ enoesque in the first place (for that you should listen to „Stifter’s Dinge“), but it was probably the ECM album that had the biggest influence on Brian Eno himself, concerning the way Goebbels uses 100 voices from the streets of Boston to make the reading of the dark prose of E. A. Poe a new and thrilling experience. So there are, without doubt, connections between „SHADOW“ and Eno’s exquisite work „Drums Between The Bells“ (2011)

Beim Lesen von Mark Twains „Bummel durch Europa“ (A Tramp Abroad) mit seinem warmherzig-ironischen Blick auf alles, was so herumkreucht und fleucht – von Heidelberger Studentenschaften bis hin zur Beobachtung eines hyperaktiven Ameisenstammes, der dem neuzeitlichen ADHS-Syndrom zur Ehre gereichte – fühlt man sich an den Philosophen Odo Marquard erinnert, der in seiner Philosophie eine ebenso warmherzige und pointierte Skepsis aufgrund der schlichten Tatsache menschlicher Begrenztheit proklamiert und praktiziert. Denn das Chaos, das in den Gestaltungsdrang der menschlichen Kreatur (a demand for permanence and perfection) immer wieder einbricht, fordert stets sein eigenes Recht zurück. Jeder Hausbau ist auch ein zerstörter Steinhaufen, der als solcher wiederkehrt.

Besonders einleuchtend ist die Wertschätzung gegenüber dem Erzählerischen, das die Geisteswissenschaften legitimiert. Sie nämlich geben der Sachlichkeit einer modernisierten und säkularisierten Welt einen Kontrapunkt. Marquard: „Denn die Menschen, das sind ihre Geschichten. Geschichten aber muss man erzählen. Das tun die Geisteswissenschaften. Sie kompensieren Modernisierungsschäden, indem sie erzählen. Und je mehr versachlicht wird, desto mehr – kompensatorisch – muß erzählt werden. Sonst sterben die Menschen an narrativer Atrophie.“ (aus: Zukunft braucht Herkunft)

So stelle ich mir ein filmisches Dokument zu einem Musikalbum idealerweise vor: keine lineare Geschichte, sondern lauter Verzweigungen, Momente aus dem Alltag des Musikers (wohltuend un-inszeniert), Studioaufnahmen, eine mal dezente, mal überraschende Einmischung der Songausschnitte in die bewegten Bilder, und die persönlichsten Aussagen von James Yorkston ganz beiläufig abgefilmt. Ohnehin ist „I Was A Cat From A Book“ ein herausragendes Songalbum, dessen Verwurzelung im Folk nicht zu genretypischen Zuschreibungen verführen sollte.

„I Was A Cat From A Book“

Karl Bruckmaier setzt die Gegenmeinung  ab:

James Yorkston
„I was a Cat from a Book“
(Domino WIGCD 290)
vermutlich die fadeste Platte auf Domino ever **

EIVIND AARSET w/ JAN BANG: DREAM LOGIC

Kristinansand is meant to be a metaphor, not pure realism. Jon Wozencraft would call it „psycho-geography“.

After returning from Kristiansand and sitting in the car on my way to the Deutschlandfunk, I immediately put DREAM LOGIC in my cd-player. Though I interviewed Eivind Aarset days before (with new Manafonista Henning), I was now hearing the record for the first time. A fantastic one, surely my favourite Eivind album. A perfect balance of moody and abstract textures, full of twists and strange sounds that are the ice on the cake and prevent nostalgia from taking control. Great, too, for driving by night! Eivind, old Punkt matador since year 1, will be on „Dream Logic“-tour in Germany in November  (Stadtgarten, Zeche Carl and other good and small places).

(The headline is a bit long, but will do its job to create an unforgettable mental note.)