Brian Eno – Film Music 1976-2020

Opal

Compilations can be rather odd releases, especially ones that cover a large period of time. Normally tracks jar against each other as the artist refines their music and even change styles. This is not the case with Film Music 1976-2020, where Brian Eno’s work seamlessly melds together to give the album the feel that you are listening to a cohesive piece of work especially composed for this disc, rather than music composed over a forty-four-year time span.

This shows the strength of Eno’s work, as does the fact that many of the pieces on the album were written without even seeing a single piece of footage from the movies. In the case of “Beach Sequence” for Beyond The Clouds, Eno neither met or spoke to director Michelangelo Antonioni.

Eno’s first soundtrack was for the rather dire ’70s horror film The Devil’s Men, starring Peter Cushing; however, it is with the director Derek Jarman that Eno began his soundtrack career in earnest. The haunting “Final Sunset” from Sebastiane hovers in the air like vultures in the desert, its synthesizers chiming with the hot currents, adding a disturbing ambience to Jarman’s visual images. The track could almost be an outtake from David Bowie’s Low or even Eno’s own Before And After Science, its piano notes ringing in a melancholy way.

The other track from a Jarman film is from 1978’s punk extravaganza Jubilee. “Dover Beach” has a sombre feel to it that makes it transcend time in a strange way, its low bass notes and dramatic wave-like chords envelop the listener and bring a sense of stillness to proceedings. Eno’s work on this particular soundtrack seemed slightly at odds with the punk bands that filled up the rest of the soundtrack album.

Apart from two tracks from Al Reinhardt’s majestic For All Mankind, Jarman is the only other director to have two pieces represented here. “Deep Blue Day” and “An Ending (Ascent)” are both from the Apollo And Atmospheres album, although the pedal steel guitar of Daniel Lanois on “Deep Blue Day” is attributed here to the Trainspotting soundtrack. “An Ending” has been used on various documentaries and even TV adverts since; its choir-like sounds were a track that Eno was almost going to throw away until he played the piece backwards and its haunting chord sequence was revealed, and it became one of his best-known pieces.

The album begins with pulsing theme for Top Boy, with Eno’s marimba-sounding synths gently undulating to give a rather sedate but beautiful opening title track. “Ship In A Bottle” comes from Peter Jackson‘s take on the almost un-filmable book The Lovely Bones; here the music caresses like waves on a beach, and there is a underlying sadness to the piece that stays with you. “Blood Red” from the BBC Arena documentary about Francis Bacon has a far more atonal and avant-garde feel to it, but still sits well with the other tracks on this compilation as slight jazz flourishes on the piano sit beside organic sounds and Eno’s dramatic synth pad flourishes.

“Under” from Cruel World has a rolling drum pattern and a wonderful Eno vocal that sits on top of a Mick Karn-sounding bass pattern. For me, it’s always nice to hear Eno sing as his voice can certainly lift a track, as it does here, where it carries the main melody over a jazzier backing, again with those incredible swelling synth sounds that sound so lush. “Decline And Fall” from O Nome De Morte has a hymnal feel about it, but still manages a sense of abstraction as well, being a solemn piece with its church-like echo cascading around the slight chords. “Prophecy Theme” from David Lynch’s Dune from 1984 is another of Eno’s better-known soundtrack compositions, and eerily hangs on a cosmic chord sequence that hints at his Apollo… work in that it conjures up the images of being in space and seeing these incredible alien worlds revealed to you as you make your journey towards some strange planet, and is certainly one of my personal favourite soundtrack works by Eno.

The sequenced-sounding “Reasonable Question” from We Are As Gods tumbles around itself, until bass and electronic snare drums kick in and move the piece into almost early Human League or Kraftwerk territory. “Late Evening Jersey” brings us back to more typical Eno ambience, recorded for Michael Mann’s film Heat, it could be thought of as the oddest crime movie music ever, the chords moving languidly, being punctuated by a rolling snare drum or a tapping cymbal as the keyboards build up tension.

“You Don’t Miss Your Water” from Married To The Mob is a slightly more jaunty country-sounding affair, which again has a lovely Eno vocal and proves that somewhere deep down the man has a country and western album just waiting to burst out in the future. The song reminds me of Tex Perkins‘ Sad But True album in the way that the lyrics have a fairly down vibe of love lost over a backing that you could almost slap your thighs to. “The Sombre”, again from Top Boy, has an almost concertina sound on keyboards that play over a low drone, and there is a certain metallic energy the sits within the track and a ringing sound not unlike tinnitus.

The soundtrack for Rams was finally released this year on vinyl as part of 2020’s Record Store Day, and “Design As Reduction” has an echoed glockenspiel sound to which a stuttering lead synth moves in and out over the top. The piece judders like its trying to shake off something, its chord punctuations sharply coming into play at times, and has the feel of a camera slowly moving through rooms in a gallery, only glimpsing the art work that resides on the wall. “Undersea Steps” from Hammerhead certainly conjures up the world beneath the waves, glistening with underwater sunlight while still feeling alien in some way. Here, Eno sprinkles a soft melody over a repeating pattern of notes that have a floating quality about them; this is music for inner space in a strange way,  and has the vibe of contemplation about it.

With seven previously unreleased tracks as well as pieces that could only be found on albums that included other artists (the Dune soundtrack had the band Toto as its other main contributor), you are getting a lot of obscure music in this release. As I mentioned at the beginning, the tracks sit beside each other very well and make the album seem like a new complete work. Apart from the use of drums on a couple of tracks which might help date them to the era they were recorded in, the rest could have been created in the last six months. The unreleased material is worth the purchase on its own, but also if you don’t want to be skipping those Toto tracks to get to “Prophecy Theme”, then it’s nice to have that piece sitting among other Eno works for a change.

This is a compilation put together thoughtfully, creating an aural atmosphere that you want to remain in. Now, I’m also going to waiting for a country and western album from Brian; I’m sure he might have one somewhere in his vaults.

-Gary Parsons-