Brian, Joan, Jon, Jan & Associates
BRIAN ENO has, after a 35-year hiatus, decided to relaunch his fabled record label, Opal. The whole interview with Eno on Opal and much more can be read in the December edition of UNCUT. Here‘s a little excerpt with some echoes in the comments ranging from an old Jon Hassell portrait from the early 1990‘s to the „Punkt Family“ with Jan Bang, Eivind Aarset and Arve Henriksen. (m.e.)
Was there anyone you tried to get for Opal but couldn’t?
At one point I thought I would love to have Joan Armatrading on the label! I know that sounds a bit random, but I really admired her work. But I don’t think we ever made any approach to her. Mostly, it would be just people I already knew – like Jon Hassell, who was really one of a kind.
Hassell was another very uncompromising character…
Oh my gosh… I mean, we were very close friends, but bloody hell! He could have had such a happier life if he hadn’t been so paranoid. He worked with so many people who really believed in him and did everything to support him, and he always thought, ‘They’re trying to take over my life.’
5 Kommentare
flowworker
EPILOGUE 1:
https://www.manafonistas.de/2023/03/01/summer-in-the-city-1990/
EPILOGUE 2:
From an old „Manafonistas Post“
That Joan Armatrading album from 1976. In my days as a student, in the second half of the 70s, music was delivering one milestone after the other. The golden age. So, sometimes you got a great record, but it didn‘t stay too long for a deeper relationship. You were riding the wave too fast.
From the two or three albums I then bought from her, this was one. I really loved. She could, in her own delicate style, dig as deep into personal affairs and other humans‘ stories like, say, Joni Mitchell. And now, by some special circumstances, I got this rather expensive vinyl remaster for free (from Intervention Records), and I put it on a really good record player – and I was smiling. Gosh.
This IS a stunner, with an unsurpassable, natural sound. The voice in the room, the instruments, their transparency! Not one of those albums craving for attention.
Jan Bang
Dear Michael,
What a lovely interview with Brian. The comment on Jon Hassell is well described. A few good people were supporting him in so many different ways. The ones that didn´t nescessarily care were closer to him. While the ones who really loved him he pushed away. Peter Freeman, Jon´s loyal bassplayer was another person who really cared. I recently met with composer Elliott Sharp in Frankfurt who sent me the previously unreleased album by Peter. Elliott helped putting it out after Peter´s passing. Strange that Jon, Peter and Dino (J.A. Deane) all passed away within a period of a few months.
last weekend I also met Peter Schwalm at the F.I.M festival in Frankfurt . He was happy that Opal decided to reissue Drawn From Life. A thing of beauty.
x
j
Michael Engelbrecht
@ Jan: yes, we remember, Jon stopping to play at Kristiansand for minutes and verbally attacking Peter F with words at a Punkt Festival long time ago. Such things could happen no matter how kind and heartwarming other encountere were. Out of nowhere, so to speak. But we all are graceful for the music. That stays.
Other thing: it’s interesting to hear about the musical preferences of your favourite artists. Often easy to follow, sometimes not. in case of Brian I heard years ago about his love for Joni’s Court and Spark. Interesting and, what a powerful decade for Joni anyway. My desert islnd will always be Hejira, ask Sidsel! 😉 For the first time i now read he loved the work of Joan Armatrading, too, another perfect fit with my beloved 1970’s.
For all the good reasons, not every recommendation must lead to a new horizon. A good example is an album that everybody seemed to love by the time of release of DRAWN FROM LIFE (and later, too): Lyn Gerlach, Peter Schwalm, Brian Eno (and people I asked about it), probably you, too, everybod loves Meshell Ndgeocellos „Planatation Lullalbies“. Well, I couln’t relate to it at all. In the sense of any deeper emotional response. 😉
And, yes, Jan, the interview is crossing decades, full of litte flashlights and stories. „The Shutov Assembly“ only seemed to find very few listeners. Must all‘ve been listeners of my night program..😂 I played The Shutov Assembly upside down, a clear 10. Thomas Köner is a huge admirer, too.
P.S. And what does Mr. Uncut say: „THE SHUTOV ASSEMBLY. 1992 Here, then, are the ambient drifts: 10 tracks, most short, one long, composed by Eno over the preceding few years. Meditative and enthralling, and perhaps the true heir to Another Green World’s instrumental pieces. 9/10“
Jan Bang
Next week we´re doing a full evening of Punkt at the Skopje Jazz Festival. Eivind and myself doing music from Dream Logic followed by Skuli Sverrisson and Ölóf Arnalds and a Punkt live remix along with Erik Honoré et al.
Listening back to Dream Logic thinking „thats a really good album“. Different ways of listening in different times. How an album like DL came about the same time as Cartography, …And Poppies from Kandahar. The three albums form a triology.built on some of the same ideas.
Around the same time we recorded Last Night the Moon Came Dropping its Clothes in the Street in La Buissonne near Avignon. Rick Cox introducing without a warning a string sample from a session he´d previously done with Film composer Thomas Newman.
xj
flowworker
„Without warning“ 😅
Cartography
Dream Logic
… And Poppies from Kandahar
A true trilogy, indeed.
A short notice on Dream Logic from 2012
„Eclecticism can be so inventive. Music to get lost in. Brian’s defintion of „Where am I-music“ fully realized. And a brilliant extension of a lost classic of Ambient Music, Michael Brook’s „Infinite guitar“-playing on „Hybrid“. That milestone once was created in the famous Grant Avenue Studios in Hamilton, Ontario. The producers: Brian and Daniel. The golden years. And now this: „Dream Logic“ is the kind of album critics will attest an „almost hallucinatoric“ quality – and they are right! One of the best albums of 2012 recurring on traditions where many others only offer cheap pastiche!“ (Michael E.)
Great days in Skopje!