evilchiliI'm beginning #EnoTime with 1975's Discreet Music. Eno was already exploring atmospherics and drones at this time, especially on his collaborations with Robert Fripp. But it was on this record that we find him developing the notion of composition not as the output of a singular, intentional act of creation, but the consequence of stable systems consisting of closed feedback loops he termed "self-generating."
Discreet Music's A side is 30 minute recording of two independent synth lines being fed through a tape loop, echo distortion and graphic equalizer, the latter of which Eno would occasionally tweak as the loop repeats. The lines themselves are simple noodling around a major triad that on one line oscillates from (I think) the 6th to the 5th, and from the 2nd to the root. As the two intersect and overlap, it creates this stasis in which tiny moments of tension are immediately released, over and over, in stochastic but pleasing harmonies. The tuning slides around the tonal center somewhat, causing strange, liminal overtones that will occasionally grab your attention just as the piece has fallen out of your attention. I love this piece for its stasis, its satisfying, dependable resolutions, and its surprises. Like, somewhere around minute 27 the tonal center shifts entirely, and I *think* we end up in a new key? The hell?
Side B explores similar concepts but with live instrumentation: here the system is a string quartet given a set of instructions, and the input is a fragment of Pachabel's Canon in D. My wife hates this music because the result is rapid decomposition of a familiar phrase into functional harmonic madness. I find it fascinating as an experiment in game theory, but it's less successful and less moving than other examples (such as Zorn's Cobra).
Mrowster