HAROLD BUDD/BRIAN ENO Ambient 2/The Plateaux Of Mirror (Editions EG/Virgin)

The second release in Eno’s Ambient series, “The Plateaux Of Mirror” takes the formalism of its predecessor, “Music For Airports” – the slowly dripping, minimal piano loops that sound like stalactites forming – and cross-pollinates it with pastel shades of melody. As barely there and everywhere as the listener wishes it to be, there’s a clean elegance to the intertwining treated piano patterns of “First Light” and the title track’s seductive, gently swaying cadences. The (con) trick, of course, is to not concentrate on the music, otherwise you’ll be infuriated at just how little is actually going on here.

The delicately tangled jangle piano cobwebs that form “An Arc Of Doves” could be the soundtrack to Budd and Eno’s own peculiar kind of East End knees-up, and the shuddering, tremulous power chords of “Not Yet Remembered” seem to have leaked in from a Chicago album. “Wind In Lonely Fences”, by happy contrast, sounds more like the clanking and jangling of strange boats moored in alien harbours. (Well, you describe it then!) Whatever it evokes in your mind’s ear, “The Plateaux Of Mirror” functions best when it’s allowed to diffuse through space like spray.

Cluster & Eno

Brian Eno

Roxy Music

Home