Track Listing

1. Sky Saw
2. Over Fire Island
3. St Elmo's Fire
4. In Dark Trees
5. The Big Ship
6. I'll Come Running
7. Another Green World
8. Sombre Reptiles
9. Little Fishes
10. Golden Hours
11. Becalmed
12. Zawinul/Lava
13. Everything Merges With The Night
14. Spirits Drifting

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4316 in Music
• Released on: 2009-08-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Eno first emerged as a member of Roxy Music, where the synthesizer player electronically "treated" the band's other instruments, the first indicator that the recording process was itself Eno's chosen instrument. His subsequent career has been one of the most provocative in pop, for not only did he devote himself to such obscure pursuits as "ambient music," but he produced vital albums by David Bowie, Talking Heads, and U2. Eno made a handful of relatively conventional pop albums in the 1970s, and Another Green World ranks with Before and After Science as his most enduring solo work. Another Green World finds Eno mixing distorted guitars (courtesy of Robert Fripp) with a variety of keyboards and exotic rhythms to create a meditative wash of sound that is nonetheless awash with colourful touches. Particularly appealing is the bubbling "St Elmo's Fire", with a stunning guitar part by Fripp, and "I'll Come Running", in which Eno shows that even a dedicated experimentalist can have a soft heart. From the strange-but-true file, Phil Collins contributes drums and percussion to three tracks. --John Milward

Customer Reviews

Verdant Vibes
Autumn 1990 in Oxford was the first time I ever heard Brian Eno. Then, his sound was a world apart from the jangling indie that I was lapping up, but the combination of atmospheric electronic instrumentals, and beautifully sung vocal tracks was deeply appealing. Little did I know that Eno was the godfather of ambient, a sound brought to a wider audience by the Orb and their ilk in the early 90s.

At the time, I taped this from a friend's vinyl but I replaced this copy of Another Green World with the CD a few years ago and listening to it again nearly thirty years after it was recorded the inventiveness and playful approach of Eno and his cohorts still springs out; Phil Collins' splendid drumming provides proof, if it were needed, that the only place I want to hear him is behind the kit. Robert Fripp's "Frippertronics" guitar system involving tape-delay systems and looped feedback is used to ear-bending effect on several tracks. And behind it all, bald on top and long at the sides, Eno's compositional and production genius shines. He credits himself on a fabulous array of made-up instruments ("Snake Guitar", "Unnatural Sounds", "Desert Guitar" and the like) and peppers everything with harmonics, percussive flourishes and twinkling melodic runs. This is an album that manages to combine all kinds of emotions, yet stil sounds coherent.

In the last few years I've listened to a lot of Brian Eno's back catalogue, and other personal favourites include Before And After Science and his Ambient series. But I have a particular fondness for Another Green World, and time has been very kind to it; part of this is probably nostalgia, but I think it's also because it's SUCH a great record.

This album changed pop music
The last album by Eno. After this he became Brian. The change was significant. Out goes the surreal, playful, avant pop of previous albums and in comes something more studious and reflective. "Another Green World" is heralded not only as Eno's best song album but as a defining statement in the development of modern pop music. It led to Bowie co-producing a trilogy of albums with him, to producing Talking Heads and U2 and effectively was a blueprint to how the studio could be used as a compositional tool. There were less songs and more instrumental sketches, but Eno was mastering his art and producing something that had never been heard before.

Eno loves space and here he makes good use of it, keeping the instrumentation to an absolute minimum and putting everything in it's right place at the right time. He has quoted Teo Macero's editing and production of Miles Davis's "He Loves Him Madly" as a big influence on what he was doing and it shows how he was developing as a producer, a role that would eventually make him a household name. There are elements of funk and jazz here, emphasised by Percy Jones unmistakeable fretless bass playing on several tracks. There is even a track named after Weather Report's Joe Zawinul.

Robert Fripp is also an important contributor here. His fuzzy sustained guitar tones shine on tracks such as "St. Elmo's Fire", "I'll Come Running" and "Golden Hours". John Cale adds viola runs to the appropriately named "Sky Saw". Phil Collins, in Brand X mode makes an appearance here, further emphasising the loose, jazzy leanings.

There is a cool, alien austerity about this album, further emphasised by Tom Phillips other worldly cover. This is music from another green world indeed.

A couple of comments about these Original Master re-issues. They are minimally packaged in digipaks which are housed in transparent plastic slip cases. No notes, essays or lyrics, just the original recording credits. These are not remasters as such, but new transfers taken from the original master tapes using the new Direct Stream Digital (DSD) format. This is state of the art as regards mastering onto compact disc. They have been transferred by Simon Heyworth who is one of the best in the business. He has made statements about the remastering of these recordings. Why change something that was done right originally! Eno was happy with the original mastering so what is needed is just the best transfer onto compact disc that is currently feasible. Whereas the original CD's sounded flat and thin, these transfers are much livelier and offer a fuller, more detailed sound.

Perfection
Musically raw, because it was the first to venture into what is called ambient. This contains gems each one of which you wish longer. This is one of the few works which contains a genuine sense of menace and has the power to disturb as well as beguile. Sky saw: there was a bond film with a helicopter mounted rotary blade - do not (repeat do not) hold this image and listen to the track (trust me). I came to this album as a restult of it being used for a BBC TV programme (Arena used the title track). I came away with a knowledge of the birth of ambient psychedelia.