3. Brian Eno- Another Day On Earth


This is Eno's first real solo-outing since Another Green World in 1975! You'd start to wonder if he needed other people around him to create a new album.
It's quite fitting that in design there are so many comparisons between the two. The way Eno writes is economic and tight in the structure, but it's the build-up and the creating of that bit of ambient atmosphere that most songs inherit that sets them apart from your average three minute popsong. Let's face it, all songs on this album are fairly simplistic. But then why is this record one of my favourites for the year?
The answer is that Eno out of these simplistic features creates songs that at times feel like that they go deeper than the ocean and it is just stunning to hear how he manages to create that sensation. It's in the way he arranges the songs. Of course there's the ubiquitous keyboards adding this melancholical touch here and there (or dominating as on Going Unconscious) but also how he handily interweaves vocal lines with guitar, like in Passing Over, uses pulsing beats, snakelike bass and sparse percussion as elements rather than backbone. He loves to use spectral melodic chords like the beautiful string arrangement on How Many Worlds and he doesn't do that same trick twice.
And then, most importantly there's the songs themselves. There's a charming, almost naive theme in all of them, starting with Eno's vocals, unassuming and simple. The lyricism on songs like This, like a shoppinglist-song, How Many Worlds or Just Another Day with its simplistic wish to describe mankind's worst episodes as just 'another day on earth' give this image of a very likeable set, despite some more serious thoughts. But Eno doesn't make it all that laid back and innocent- he counteracts the easygoing grooves with some chilling work in the closing Bone Bomb, where a cut-up vocal of a talking woman speaking of a beautiful death, like a suicide bomber about to go off in a tense electronic stand off before the sudden end...it's like he has set us all up for that stunning reminder of earth's really dark side. Mindblowing (no pun intended!).
Another Day On Earth may sound weightless for many but any true spaceman should know that that's where the charm of the trip lies- this album's the perfect lift off to discover this.