Have you heard the news? They’re eatin' good in Mr. Eno's neighborhood! Brian Eno, the avant-garde's best known former glam-rocker / ambient musician / producer to the stars / random philosopher / sound sculptor / sexologist / video auteur / man who cured polio (I'm not sure about that last one), has a new album on the way.
Due on the Fourth of July (which apparently they don't bother to celebrate in the U.K.), "Drums Between the Bells" is a collaboration with poet Rick Holland, who's been among Eno's stable of co-conspirators since 2003. Based on the first available track, "Glitch," it will be another solid entry in Eno's crazily diverse artistic canon.
Brian Eno - "Glitch" audio
"Glitch" begins with a rubbery, pulsating electronic rhythm and clicking tribal percussion. Then a very Kraftwerk-like man/machine voice begins reciting some of Holland's digital non sequitur verse. Like any good humanoid, the voice has a vaguely indefinable hybrid accent, somewhere between Udo Kier and one of those James Bond Euro-trash evil genius super villains. Just past the halfway mark, some wailing, heavily treated keyboards kick their jagged way in, adding an even greater sense of bit-rate overload urgency, until the whole thing zaps to an abrupt close.
If you want to spend time dissecting lines like "There is a glitch in the system, outside the brain flow" and "Death is not the end, it’s a place to search through night with," be my guest. I prefer to just lose myself in the arty, edgy Eno-ness of it all.
The cover image, apparently Eno's own creation, resembles a full color Spin-Art version of a hard drive soundboard, if the palette moved up and down rather than in a circle. Or maybe the computer's face is just melting. Either way, I've got an itch for "Glitch" and Eno is my back scratcher.
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