Brian Eno: Oblique Music

Introduction: Brian Eno: A problem of organization - David Pattie and Sean Albiez

PART ONE - Eno: Composer, musician and theorist

1 The Bogus Men: Eno, Ferry and Roxy Music - David Pattie
2 Brian Eno, non- musicianship and the experimental tradition - Cecilia Sun
3 Taking the studio by strategy- David Pattie
4 Between the avant- garde and the popular: The discursive economy of Brian Eno's musical practices - Chris Atton
5 Yes, but is it music? Brian Eno and the definition of ambient music - Mark Edward Achtermann
6 The Lovely Bones: Music from beyond - Hillegonda C. Rietveld
7 The voice and/of Brian Eno - Sean Albiez

PART TWO - The University of Eno: Production and collaborations

8 Before and after Eno: Situating 'The Recording Studio as Compositional Tool' - Sean Albiez and Ruth Dockwray
9 Control and surrender: Eno remixed - collaboration and Oblique Strategies - Kingsley Marshall and Rupert Loydell
10 Avant-gardism, 'Africa' and appropriation in My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - Elizabeth Ann Lindau
11 Eno and Devo - Jonathan Stewart
12 Another Green World? Eno, Ireland and U2 - Noel McLaughlin
13 Documenting no wave: Brian Eno as urban ethnographer - Martin James

Select Discography

Specialists in English, media, film and television have also been invited to take part in this conversation, which feels authentic to the spirit of Eno ... The book mulls over those necessary questions that anyone thinking about Eno must eventually face.
Contributions include meticulous descriptions of compositions; a chapter about Eno's ambient oeuvre (which quirkily compares him to Tolkien at great length) ... Albiez contributes to the best piece on precursors to Eno's use of the studio to create new sounds. ... Intellectually stimulating.
The collection's standouts are Martin James' pithy, pacy account of Eno's years in New York (1978-84) . and Hillegonda Rietveld's coolly attentive reading of the soundtrack to the film The Lovely Bones, in which his "oblique music seems like a ghostly call from the 'in-between'".
For quite some time, Brian Eno has been jokingly referred to as the 'professor of pop'. It's about time, then, that real academics caught up with a body of work that is as perplexing as it is complex. ... Essential reading for all academic listeners.
This much needed book explores the many trajectories of Eno's varied career, and it will engage and excite any music lover, regardless of your opinion of Eno's work. It's a richly rewarding collection that deftly explores and unpacks the work of one of popular music's pioneering figures. ... Oblique Music does an outstanding job of critically capturing both the well-known and less familiar elements of Eno's work ... [It] provides some thought-provoking material on broader issues such as collaboration, composition, creativity, experimentation, musicianship, technology and more, and as such will stimulate the interest of anyone engaged in music creation and production. This is a book that you will return to time and again - like Eno's best work, its rewards make themselves most evident after repeated visits.
Meticulously written, rich in detail and factually argued ... Anyone who wants to know Eno from the beginning, to understand his experimental strategies in the studio or to study his eternal movement between pop music and free sound, will not be disappointed.
[T]he essays or chapters in this anthology are thoughtful, thought-provoking, informed and interesting ... [and] they come at their subject from an appropriately wide-ranging and inter-disciplinary number of fields ... It's a lively and varied collection, that leaves room for even more consideration of the elusive, enigmatic and influential Eno.
[A] series of essays by academics each focussing on an aspect of Eno's work and ideas. ... There's even a chapter about Devo. A fascinating [read].
As producer, musician, theorist, facilitator and more, Brian Eno has left significant traces across popular culture since the 1970s and this wide-ranging volume skillfully brings to light both well-known and more obscure aspects of his work and legacy.
Few figures in the history of modern music stand up to the kind of wide-ranging, detailed and careful treatment meted out in this brilliant collection. Eno's expansive repertoire - from glam rock icon to avant-garde composer - constitutes the fertile grounds for what is a learned and lively intervention. Deigned to be a benchmark collection for anyone interested in process-oriented creativity and experimental musicianship, the collection shines a light on Eno's dynamic craftsmanship. It fills a crucial gap in the field, bestowing on the reader a unique insight into Eno the polymath, singer, collaborator, composer, avant-gardiste, intellectual and self-defined "non-musician". A richly-informed, lucidly written and rigorously compiled collection that provides new insights with every turn of the page.