Ambient Spotlight #11: Brian Eno - Apollo

Full album-name: "Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks". This album was originally recorded as a soundtrack for the documentary Apollo (For all mankind) in 1983. Songs of this album were later used in lots of other movies (Trainspotting) and tv-series. Brian Eno, Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois produced the album.

It's one of Brian Eno's warmest ambient albums, although there are some pieces that are inspired by country and western ('Silver Morning') and feel a bit out of place compared to the rest of the album.

Apart from that it's an excellent ambient album.

http://itunes.apple.com/album/apollo-atmospheres-soundtracks/id49814746

Ambient Spotlight #5: Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music for Airports

Ambient Spotlight wouldn’t be complete with at least one album from the ‘godfather’ of Ambient music, Brian Eno, who is generally known for introducing the term ‘Ambient Music’ back in the 1970s.

His first complete ambient album was Ambient 1: Music for airports, which was released in 1978 on his own Ambient label. This album was one of a series of 4 ambient albums, labeled Ambient 1 to Ambient 4, all having a quite different atmosphere.

Eno’s inspiration for making Ambient 1 came after being stuck at Cologne Bonn Airport in Germany in the mid 70s. He had to spend several hours there and was extremely annoyed by the uninspired sound atmosphere. Eno’s definition of ambient music: "music that can be actively listened to with attention or as easily ignored, depending on the choice of the listener", and that exists on the "cusp between melody and texture."

Enjoy!

http://itunes.apple.com/nl/album/ambient-1-music-for-airports/id29468379

Apps from Brian Eno (iOS)

Together with software designer Peter Chilvers, Brian Eno developed a series of apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. One of these apps is called ‘Air’, which was created together with Irish vocalist Sandra O’Neill :

“Based on concepts developed by Brian Eno, with whom Chilvers created Bloom, Air assembles vocal and piano samples into a beautiful, still and ever changing composition, which is always familiar, but never the same.”

http://www.generativemusic.com