Eno, Brian

1948–

Musician, Multimedia Artist

Brian Eno is a music innovator whose career has spanned 30 years, during which he pioneered the use of electronics in the recording studio while leaving an indelible stamp on the techno, punk, glam, electronica, and ambient music sub-genres. He is also among the world's most successful recording producers, collaborating at various times with David Bowie, U2, Laurie Anderson, John Cale, Talking Heads, and others to generate some of their greatest works. In the mid-1990s, Eno was a founder of the computer-driven “generative music” scene, which utilizes digital technology to create music pieces that recreate themselves continuously upon playback, so that a particular piece of music never sounds exactly the same way twice. Even within the confines of his music career, his connection to cyberculture is direct: Eno created the 3.5-second arpeggio that sounds when Microsoft Windows and Office programs are booted up.

Brian Eno, 1974. (Neal Preston/CORBIS)

While his many achievements have garnered Eno respect and fame worldwide, it's likely that none of them would have earned him space in this book had he not also acquired a reputation as one of the most salient cultural thinkers of the digital age—an influential cyber-critic whose sometimes paradoxical theories landed him on the cover of Wired magazine's third issue. Cyberpunk godfather William Gibson has said that Eno's song “King's Lead Hat” has been a pivotal influence on his work, providing a “benchmark of peculiarity” for him. Today, Eno occupies a place of honor among the cyber-age intelligentsia. Interestingly, Eno insists that he hates computers; they reduce the illogical and intuitive things that artists do, and as such they represent perhaps equal parts threat and promise to the world's cultural vibrancy.

Brian Peter George St. Baptiste de la Salle Eno was born in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, on May 15, 1948. He was the son of an English postman father and a Belgian immigrant mother, who met in Germany during World War II. Various accounts credit both a grandfather, who habitually tinkered [Page 186]with mechanical musical instruments, and a “peculiar and eccentric” uncle, also a tinkerer, as the family catalysts for Eno's creative talents. Eno attended the Winchester School of Art, now part of the University of Southampton, in the 1960s. There, he learned about conceptual painting and sound sculpture, and first began experimenting with what he calls his first musical instrument, the tape recorder; he earned a Diploma in Fine Art from the school. Afterward, in 1969, Eno moved to London, where he joined Roxy Music, playing synthesizer for Bryan Ferry's famed glam-rock band.

After making two acclaimed albums with Roxy Music, Eno went solo, although his first move, in 1973, was to collaborate with avant-garde guitarist Robert Fripp on a record called No Pussyfooting. During those sessions, Eno invented a tape-manipulation technique, which he dubbed “Frippertronics,” that relied on looped delays, pioneering the use of studio technologies to actually compose music on the spot, as opposed to recording fully finished musical pieces. As such, Eno paved the way for later digital sampling in pop music forms like techno, electronica, and rap.

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