Installation CD's
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Eno has done a number of Installation CD's over the last few years. These have not been commercially released, but made available through the galleries, and by popular demand, through his record company, Eno Shop. Elements of sound recorded onto different CD's with different lengths. Multiple CD players are located around the space and set to play randomly. The result is a never repeating montage of sounds that interact with each other. Compact Forest had one CD with two very different 'harmonic substrata' giving the pieces two very different feels.

Because of the similarity of the way the pieces are made, there is some similarity in the sound on the CD. This may or may not be a concern. There are different elements that are used to make up the pieces and Eno has added new sections and removed others for different installations. Recently Brian has been using the time stretched voice of the waitress at his favourite Japanese restaurant for example.

You can get an idea of the general sound of these CD's from 'Ikebukuro' from -The Shutov Assembly-.

The Partobject gallery installation was slightly different in that it was made up of a number of SSEYO Koan pieces created by Eno and Bliss screensaver elements. No CD was produced from this exhibition, but the computers with the bliss screensavers were offered for sale after the exhibition. The gallery site had example screen captures of Blisses to give an idea of the sorts of images that were being produced. Further discussion on Eno and Technology is available here.

Contrary to popular belief (and the hype of ebay) many of the installation CDs ARE availbable from www.EnoShop.co.uk. This site also has details of the 3 new Eno projects.

  1. -January 07003 | Bell Studies For The Clock Of The Long Now- is a generative CD based on possible peelings for the clock of the Long Now. Brian seems to have spent a LONG time exploring campanology and bell sounds. This CD was in preperation for about 2 years. To get an ideaa of what it sounds like have a listen on enoshop or just image one of the other installation CDs with bell sounds. There is an installation of sorts in the Sciene Museum in London, surprisingly close to where I work, haven't mustered the enthusiasm to go yet though.
  2. -18 Keyboard Studies By Hans Friedrich Micheelsen- is a collection of... well, 18 keyboard studies. Not that exciting, played by Roger (Brians brother) and manipulated by him. It also has 18 30 second silent tracks at the end, so if you put it on shuffle play you get random length gaps between the music. Ho hum, already done by Laraaji a couple of years ago with -Flow Goes the Universe-
  3. The third disk is still awaiting release at the time of writing, but will be a collection of odd recordings that did not fit anywhere else with Eno projects. It looks like there is a track from the Headcandy project or Era and a couple of godawful vocal killings. Judge for yourself at enoshop but don't come crying to me if you get charged £16 for this.

From the ranting above you might have gathered that I am a little underwhelmed by Eno output at the moment. Seems that a lot of other fans may be as well, as there is an even more pronounced than normal lethargy on the mailing lists and newsgroups. Oh well, time for a nap.

EnoLand has tributes to the Eno installations as well. Look here.