Discreet Music by Brian Eno

The story behind the creation of this record is related to a car accident that immobilized Eno in bed in 1975.  Not being able to get up to adjust the volume of a turntable that played eighteenth-century harp music, and with the sound of rain attenuating the sound, Eno had an epiphany: music could have a completely different function. It didn't necessarily have to be the center of attention, but it could blend in with its surroundings.

Discreet Music is not just a series of tracks, but a philosophical experience that shifts the creative focus from the artist to the listener. Although later albums such as Ambient 1: Music for Airports have made the genre more accessible to the general public, this album remains the purest, most radical and intriguing experiment of his entire production.

The album that represents one of the first and most well-known examples of generative music.  Eno's approach was to act as the "director" or designer of the system, minimizing his own manual intervention in the creation of the sound.  Side A of the album is based on a closed-loop tape delay system, inspired by Robert Fripp's early experiments, known as Frippertronics, which I have already talked about at length in the article on Fripp & Eno's album Evening Star.

Eno used two open-reel tape recorders placed next to each other. The blank magnetic tape started from the reel of the first recorder, which recorded the initial signal, physically passed through the playback head of the second recorder (positioned a few meters away) and finally returned to the rewind reel of the first.  The signal played by the second recorder was fed back into the first to be re-recorded, creating a very long delay and a progressive fading of the sound with each cycle.

The audio stream was deliberately minimal, consisting of very few analog elements.  Eno used the Synthi AKS EMS synthesizer, a compact, modular instrument without a traditional keyboard (it used a touch keyboard), to program sweet, warm tones without sharp percussive attacks.  A Graphic Equalizer, inserted between the synthesizer and the first recorder, allowed you to actively alter the frequency spectrum, smoothing out treble and bass to make the sound as "discreet" and merged with the environment as possible.  Finally, Eno also used a very first digital synthesizer (prototype) to generate short, fixed melodic sequences to be fed into the loop.

After starting the system, Eno turned the traditional recording method upside down. He played very few isolated notes on the synthesizer, allowing a lot of time to pass between them.  Once recorded, the notes were superimposed, accumulated, and faded by the tape system autonomously, generating unpredictable harmonic combinations that Eno could never have imagined.

For the Three Variations on the Canon in D Major, Eno used an algorithmic approach with a full-fledged orchestra, the Cockpit Ensemble. He gave the musicians pieces of Pachelbel's score, asking them to repeat the fragments by changing the speed or inserting regular delays.  When mixing, he used frequency filters and small pitch variations to bring out the timbres of the strings, transforming an acoustic performance into an almost electronic and ethereal texture.

Mine is the ENOLP5 version.

Side A is all dedicated to the title-track, which starts with a slight analog rustle, that of the original magnetic tapes of 1975.  This rustle, while clean, has a warm and natural quality that pervades the whole song.  Two short synthesizer melodies intertwine, overlap and then fade away, creating an atmosphere of absolute peace.  The absence of rhythm and the fluidity of the midrange frequencies, optimized for this vinyl, make you feel completely isolated from the outside world.  The song doesn't have a real climax, but rather envelops you like a warm and comforting sound mist.

Side B features the Three Instrumental Variations, which dismantle Pachelbel's D major Canon using Eno's ideas and algorithms, interpreted by the Cockpit Ensemble.

"Fullness of Wind" is the longest variation and similar to the title-track, thanks to its hypnotic effect. Eno plays with the perception of time by making the musicians play at different speeds, overlapping the loops of the string sections.  Although the original Canon is still recognizable, the traditional harmonic bonds dissolve in a continuous and melancholic flow.

"French Catalogues" plays on fragmentation.  Here Eno isolates short melodic fragments based on the geometric combinations of a score linked to the Canon.  The result is an abstract piece reminiscent of French Impressionist music (hence the title), where the strings float in space without a precise direction.

"Brutal Ardour" is the densest and darkest moment of the album.  The pace is further slowed down and the tones of the strings are lowered.  Although the title suggests ardor, the song evokes an austere stillness, a sound procession that slowly fades away in silence, closing the album in a deep and meditative way.

These are the historic liner notes of Brian Eno:

"Since I have always preferred making plans to executing them, I have resonated with situations and systems that, once set into motion, could create music with little or no intervention on my part. That is to say that I tend to prefer the roles of planner and programmer to those of performer and participant.

The genesis of this preference is various: partly it comes from a natural laziness, partly from a realization that self-regulating systems often possess a complexity and cohesion that far exceeds what I could consciously arrange. Partly it comes from listening to compositions that originated in similar ways (such as the tape loop pieces of Terry Riley, or the process music of Steve Reich), and partly it arises from an automobile accident in January of 1975.

On that occasion I was confined to bed, not seriously hurt but unable to move with ease. A friend of mine, Judy Nylon, visited me and brought a record of 18th-century harp music. After she had gone, I managed with great difficulty to put the record on the turntable and return to bed.

Shortly afterward I realized that the amplifier was set to an extremely low volume, and that one of the two stereo channels was missing entirely. Since I hadn't the energy to get up and remedy this, I remained lying there. It was raining heavily outside and the music was only just audible, occasionally emerging above the sound of the rain.

This experience gave me a revelation about what for me was a new way of hearing music: as part of the ambient environment, just as the color of the light and the sound of the rain were parts of that environment. It was at this point that I realized that music didn't have to be a fixed and unchanging center of attention, but could be inserted gently into the fabric of space, offering a range of different listening levels without any of them being enforced.

About the recordings on this record

The piece called "Discreet Music" is a technological piece where electronics serve as the main generative component. The diagram below illustrates the arrangement of the machines I used to record the track.

The initial melodic phrases were generated by the EMS Synthi AKS synthesizer, which has a built-in digital sequencer capable of storing short sequences of notes. Having programmed two melodies of different lengths and at different tempos, I let the machine perform them, intervening only rarely to alter the timbre or consistency of the sounds.

The audio signal then passed through a graphic equalizer to alter its frequency spectrum, then into an echo unit, and was finally fed onto the recording head of the first tape recorder. The tape ran across the room to a second tape recorder, placed some distance away, which was used exclusively for playback.

The signal read by this second machine was fed back into the network mixer, where it blended with new sounds from the synthesizer, to be recorded again. This system gradually accumulated sounds, creating a very long time delay between the generation of a note and its subsequent repetition, until the signal eventually faded away due to tape degradation.

Since the system was self-contained and entirely programmed before the session, my involvement during the recording (which lasted about an hour) was minimal: I acted almost exclusively as a passenger, only occasionally altering the settings of the equalizer.

The three tracks on Side B, titled "Three Variations on the Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel", apply a similar approach but to a group of human performers. I took the famous Baroque score by Pachelbel and disassembled it, providing the members of the Cockpit Ensemble with a series of specific instructions.

Each musician was asked to repeat small fragments of the original melody, but altering the speed of performance (stretching or compressing the tempo) or changing the order of the notes according to preset rules. In this way, the ensemble of musicians behaved like a living generative machine: though starting from the same historical data, the random overlay of their individual decisions generated a completely new and unpredictable sound structure.

— Brian Eno, September 1975.”

Discreet Music formalizes the concept of Ambient music, transforming the musician into a system designer. With self-sufficient tape loops, it anticipates the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence in musical composition, merging music and environment, inviting low-volume listening that integrates the surrounding noises, transforming the music into a spatial texture. Pachelbel's geometric and algorithmic approach to the Canon has profoundly influenced modern music, including genres such as New Age, Kosmische Musik, Post-Rock and Electronic/Techno and for this reason I consider it an Essential listening.

My Version

Label: Virgin EMI Records – ENOLP5
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered, 180g
Country: Europe
Release date: Nov 16, 2018

Tracklist and Line Up

A        Discreet Music
Synthesizer [With Digital Recall System, Effects [Graphic Equalizer, Echo Unit, Delay], Tape – Brian Eno
30:35 

 

Three Variations On The Canon In D Major By Johann Pachelbel
Arranged By – Brian Eno 

 

B1        Fullness Of Wind
Conductor, Arranged By – Gavin Bryars
Engineer – Peter Kelsey
Ensemble – The Cockpit Ensemble
9:57

B2        French Catalogues
Conductor, Arranged By – Gavin Bryars
Engineer – Peter Kelsey
Ensemble – The Cockpit Ensemble
5:18

B3        Brutal Ardour
Conductor, Arranged By – Gavin Bryars
Engineer – Peter Kelsey
Ensemble – The Cockpit Ensemble

8:17

Listening link on the main streaming platforms at the following links:

Spotify: You can find the full remastered album on the official Discreet Music page on Spotify.

YouTube Music: The album can be enjoyed track by track or in continuous playback via the official Discreet Music playlist on YouTube Music.

Apple Music: The four original songs from 1975 are available at the link to the official Discreet Music album on Apple Music.

Note: All links to the musicians’ works are in the TAGS under the article title or on the "Artists"