Every since hearing Ambient 1: Music for Airports in college, I became a lifelong fan of Brian Eno’s ambient music recordings. In my admiration of his post 1977 catalog, I mostly ignored his significant run of rock albums that feature his vocals. I always felt Eno’s vocal delivery is not particularly distinctive, though I had become so accustomed to its influence as it became a template for David Bowie, David Byrne and much of new wave itself.
After putting his role in Roxy Music well behind him, Eno was not yet the rock star behind the rock star as he would become with production credits for David Bowie, U2 and The Talking Heads. For his own work, his flirtation with rock was ending as he was incorporating more electronic textures into his compositions. Compositions was a fitting term as his music was starting to have more in common with classical than pop or rock. Before and After Science, an album title that suggests Eno’s work before and after electronics is an important milestone in his discography. It would not be long after that he would release a series of groundbreaking ambient albums.
For Before and After Science, this sprit of experimentation took the form of collaboration with a considerable number of English and German musicians. Some recognizable names and Eno veteran collaborators like Robert Fripp and Phil Collins joined new faces like Dieter Moebius. Unlike prior work, Before and After Science took two years to record as Eno narrowed down more than 100 songs to 10 for the initial release. The result is an album that covers multiple styles and moods from the pastoral haze of “By This River” to the analog synths of “Through Hollow Lands”.
The album opens with its most accessible track ”No One Receiving”, a song that suggests the Talking Heads. The opener is not completely misplaced as it has a counterparts in “Kurt’s Rejoiner” complete with a hyper freetless bass. Then there is “Kings Lead Hat”, an anagram of the Talking Heads suggesting that the influence may have been mutual between Eno and the band he produced three albums for. While the intention may have been deliberate, each side of the album is dominated by either English or German collaborators with side 2 leaning more to the ambient electronic music Eno would explore later.
Although I don’t completely get Eno’s description of this album as a ‘sea’ recording (sky for Another Green World), I can sense warm and colder sides. Side 1 contains some of Eno’s most emotional vocals to date. “Julie With” has all of the warmth of an art pop song while “Energy Fools the Magician” and “Through Hollow Lands might have been film score hits on some parallel Earth. Before and After Science and to a lesser extent its predecessor Another Green World make me want to explore the Eno rock catalog further. As interesting as these efforts were, I still feel Eno is at his best behind the boards or when making ambient music.
Favorite Tracks:
No One Receiving
Kurt’s Rejoinder
Julie With
By This River
Beatopolis 