life’s backward glances
once upon a time, in 1986 or 87, brian got the key for a big church in cologne, and i could hear him play the big organ. precious, not pompous. in those days, too, he produced michael brook‘s masterpiece hybrid. the woman on the photo is the woman eno later married, anthea norman-taylor. like so many old photos, there‘s a backward glance in it. i stumbled on this picture by chance, and then looked for my old vinyl of hybrid. no one would be surprised to hear some jon hassell ghost trumpet on it. there‘s a lake, too, like on henning‘s video, – on the album, it‘s called „pond life“. (m.e.)
on land – that would be my favorite eno album. a timeless piece of music, highly inventive and enough room for the listener to create our train of thoughts. wonder if some of the reasons of its success simply has to do with it having almost no high end in the instrumentation, apart from the trumpet lifted from (was it „dream theory“?). same thing with brook´s „hybrid“ – only low, low / high mid areas involved. if you listen to „dream logic“ or „cartography“ – or for „poppies“ for that matter – it´s hardly anything going on in the treble (as if such word belongs in the analog world). when something do enter that frequency (voice, trumpet, the odd sine wave) area, it can be performed so softly and will still be extremely present in the recording. (j.b.)
3 Kommentare
The New York Times
The New York Times wrote that the album „includes hints of Middle Eastern singing and African drumming, subsumed into sustained sounds from Mr. Brook’s guitar and Brian Eno’s keyboard, all in a misty, faraway sound mix.“
flowworker
And in reference to Henning’s point…
„But would we then call this a musical hybrid? I don’t think so. So, when do we speak of musical hybrids and when not?“ …
Is „Hybrid“ a “ hybrid?
In this case: sure, nomen est omen.
Henning Bolte
Oh yes, the ‚hybrid‘- issue. Use of the term is something on the descriptive meta level (when talking or writing ABOUT music). It seems that it is very Western. It started to be used when Western systems of art nomenclature lost its innocence (esp. when so called postmodernism came up). Creators did not consciously act in terms of hybrids. Music in certain socio-cultural contexts induced blends and merges of different forms, genres and traditions. It just happened. Very often, quite normal. Just because migration is a fundamental property of mankind.