Brian Eno- The Ship (2016)

Brian Eno- The Ship (2016)

By: Ghost Writer

Brian Eno's new recording The Ship, seems to be a major statement set to music, conceptual in a way, and diverse also, finds inspiration in the Titanic, First World War and even Lou Reed compositions with the legendary Velvet Underground.

A two suite recording, first part tackles the concept of the sinking of the Titanic, it seems that The Ship major concept is pride and failure, or pride and the paranoia that follows it, musically, is pretty static, going right to the days of Eno legend as an ambient music master, here going for an astonishing immersion in the waves of pure digital sound, Eno shows his mastery of subtle, richly detailed, evolving sounds, considering the concept, yes, it sounds a lot like a submarine adventure, featuring also the use of mantra like reciting voices, it's "drony" in a way, but it is also a reflection of the digital era aesthetics.

For the second suite, titled Fickle Sun, Eno combines his musical approach with the spoken poetry of British actor Peter Serafinowicz who lends his voice to a 3 movement majestic suite, whose first part starts to open a reflexive piece on First World War, Eno here successfully incorporates elements that the play on time and memory, Eno here seems to update his ambient concept against modern ambient avatars like The Caretaker, and Eno simply does it wonderfully, The Ship and Fickle Sun work admirably well and is a definite progress from his last recording, 2012's LUX, also recorded for electronic music vanguardist label Warp.

The Ships monumental achievement may come in the form if I'm Set Free, an astonishing cover of the Velvet Underground song written by Lou Reed, after all these years, is a big reinforcement of the VU's influence on Brian Eno music and all subsequent vanguardist pop music, it's pretty touching to listen to Eno taking care of these songs, considering the fact that it was Eno one of the first non-musicians, as he called himself, to acknowledge the enormous inspiration of Lou Reed's band in the develop of modern music, here, Eno goes admittedly in an almost ironically way, given today's world context, technologically and geopolitically speaking, is a bittersweet take on new illusions, and the perils of going crazy over it, Brexit, Make America Great Again, and many other things, we are free to find new illusions, new utopias, but we must not forget that it all come down and make us fall.

Musically, Eno is totally satisfying, successfully going for the purity of sound beyond rhythms or common musical structures, The Ship is a great challenging pop record, is cerebral, daring and intellectually charged, and as with the Velvets, is just not vanguardist cool, it manages to create some warmth, and it balances in a great way both extremes, a definite step forward for Eno's revamped solo career, a legend that refuses to keep still.