Brian Eno teams up with Underworld’s Karl Hyde for “Someday World”.

Eno, left in  Roxy Music.

Eno (left) with Bryan Fer­ry (cen­tre) in Roxy Music.

In 1979, Bri­an Eno sat down with a can of fizzy pop and a pack­et of Hula Hoops to idly watch an episode of Mork and Mindy. It was the last uncre­ative thing he ever did. Since then, he’s been for­ev­er doing some­thing.

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.

After leav­ing Roxy Music and invent­ing ambi­ent music, he worked on Bowie’s sem­i­nal Berlin tril­o­gy, pro­duced three of Talk­ing Heads’ best albums, all of the best U2 albums, and pio­neered sam­pling with David Byrne with My Life in The Bush Of Ghosts back in 1981.

He’s worked on sound­tracks, instal­la­tions and albums with Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman, Daniel Lanois, Robert Fripp, John Cale, Lau­rie Ander­son, Robert Wyatt and James Blake, as well as Dido, Cold­play and Microsoft. Despite the fact that he only works on a Mac.

In oth­er words, he’s both intim­i­dat­ing­ly pro­lif­ic, and con­scious­ly catholic in his choice of col­lab­o­ra­tors. His last two albums are hap­pi­ly more of the same.

His lat­est offer­ing is Some­day World, which he pro­duced with Underworld’s Karl Hyde. It’s an infec­tious­ly upbeat, anthemic album that will pro­vide the per­fect back­drop for your next trip in a car or on a train. But truth be told, even though it’s a lit­tle bit bet­ter than the 6.2 it gets from Pitch­fork  here, it is just a lit­tle underwhelming.

Bowie, Bono and Eno in '02.

Bowie, Bono and Eno in ’02.

Much more sat­is­fy­ing is his 2012 offer­ing, Lux. Hark­ing back to his ear­li­er, pure­ly ambi­ent work such as Music for Air­ports in 1978, or Apol­lo, the piece he did with his broth­er Roger and Daniel Lanois in 1983, Lux as its title sug­gests is both calm and inti­mate, yet warm and expan­sive. Some­how, even monumental.

It is yet anoth­er remark­able addi­tion to a stag­ger­ing back cat­a­logue. You can hear a sam­ple from Lux here.

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