The Music Of Brian Eno — Music Designed For Places, Spaces & Peace Of Mind

“Eppur si mouve” is a quote in Latin by mathematician, physicist and philosopher Galileo Galilei which translates in English to “And yet it moves“.

Galileo was the first great thinker of his time to profess that the Earth revolved around the Sun instead of vice versa, a claim for which he received widespread backlash from the Church.

According to legend, as mentioned by Stephen Hawking in one of his books, Galileo is said to have uttered these words in the last few years of his life when he was forced to remain under house arrest in Florence.

The beauty I find in this quote is that it metaphorically signifies the constant motion of life, apart from just Galileo’s intention for it to describe the motion of earth.

Life is full of phases. We flow and shift in the currents of the universal motion from the present into the future. There are specific phases of our lives from one stage to the next that we live through as time progresses further.

For me, I can categorically recollect each and every phase of my life through the years based on the music I’ve listened to at that particular time.

I literally listen to everything and there’s always music playing in my room.

Brian Eno — The Innovator

Coming to 2021. I had heard about Brian Eno, however, I hadn’t dabbled in his music or heard it properly at all, but, after listening to a podcast featuring Eno this week where he talks about a myriad range of subjects about his music, inclinations, inspirations and philosophies and his journey making music, it really hit home for me on many levels. Especially because I’m an upcoming musician.

This is a man who has pioneered a genre, more specifically, Ambient music, from the mid 1970s when nobody even thought about making music like that at the time.

The sheer genius of conceptualizing Ambient music, a genre by itself, at a time when nothing of the sort existed was definitely something that inspired me. (And trust me I’m not like those people these days who get excited every time someone says the word ‘Ambient’ when talking about music :P)

As the story goes, Eno came up with the idea and inspiration for making Ambient music whilst sitting in a German airport and listening to some terrible German disco music blaring through the speaker system while he was waiting for his flight and thought to himself ‘Everything is so well designed’ from the architecture to the interiors and how the airport was built, everything was ‘well thought’ but nobody ‘thought about the music’.

That resulted in his debut album ‘Music for Airports’ which would begin a 50 year career for Eno becoming the pioneer, creator and foremost proponent of the Ambient music genre.

There are very few musicians in the world today who draw inspiration from design and architecture and Eno is one of them.

That’s also partly one of the reasons I named my upcoming debut Electronica/Downtempo LP “Spaces” after reading the blog posts of an Architect I know and learning a bit about architecture from her posts.

So you could say I drew a bit of inspiration from her blog posts and Eno’s music put together, along with my travels.

Coming back, there are many parts of the podcast I found fascinating.

Eno explains how he uses machines and electronics to do the things humans can’t do and explained how he continues experimenting with hardware & computers considerably.

In another part of the podcast he reflects on making the softest and quietest music he has ever made whilst living in a noisy neighbourhood in New York and making the loudest music he ever made while living in the quiet English countryside. A certain balance that reflects what he was looking for at the time.

Eno also talks about being stuck indoors on his bed in a room after an accident in the ’70s and how a lady friend of his put on a record of some English harp music. The volume was turned down very low as it rained outside and Eno couldn’t get up to change the volume.

He recalls watching the rain while that record played and feeling the music enveloped by the sound of the raindrops as though the music was coming from the rain. That got him thinking about using natural elements and creating soothing music that complemented such moments and scenes.

Brian Eno’s Discography: The Music Of The Bombay Monsoon Of 2021

I’ve been listening to Eno’s discography at length this past week and it’s so very peaceful and amalgamates seamlessly with the falling rain outside here in Bombay; just like a charm.

Eno’s music is full of melancholic and riveting simple piano motifs drenched in atmospheric elements, bassy synths & ethereal voices, like a boat trip to Rivendell(the kingdom of elves from The Lord Of The Rings).

It’s mystifying, melancholic, gripping and so very calm and soothing.

It puts you in a #BigCalm headspace and clears out all the negativity, worries and thoughts running through your head.

The headspace it creates is like sitting on an isolated beach and just zoning in, listening to the sound of the waves or in this case, the falling rain, as they flow in their constant unerring motion.

It’s like sitting on a banquette on the banks of a flowing river and observing its smooth motion. It’s the same river with the same water but it flows in subtle variations as it gushes past you on the river bank all merging into one.

After a while of prolonged listening, all of Eno’s music merges into one, but with subtleties and variations that keep things interesting.

It’s also great music to work to.

Just like a flowing river or flowing rain falling out of the grey clustered sky, just like Galileo said, Eno’s music ‘moves‘.

In the comfort of a cozy room merging with the rain falling outside, Eno’s music takes your mind on a trip to a quiet place of calm contemplation.

This is the peaceful soundtrack of this phase of my life, the Brian Eno phase of the Bombay monsoon 2021.

As I re-post this article in January 2022, I’m fresh from returning from a trip to a shoreline/beach destination in South India(just before the omnicron variant began wreaking havoc) and I’d definitely recommend checking out Eno’s music and going through his discography, if you just need some music to relax, and wind down to, especially since we’re all indoors because of COVID.

It’s also the perfect music to put you in a calm headspace at the start of the year.

I hope you dig it.

Cheers!