Brian Eno - artist and musician HARDtalk


Brian Eno - artist and musician

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Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur. My guest today is a hugely

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influential contemporary music maker, once styled the brainiest man

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in pop. Except the word" pop" doesn't fit Brian Eno. He was a

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member of Roxy Music in the early 70s, but he went his own way,

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developing ambient music, audiovisual installations and

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collaborative with a host of big names, including David Bowie, U2 and

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Coldplay. His output has been prolific and very, but was easy, --

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what is he, musician, composer or an artist impossible to label.

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Brian Eno, welcome to HARDtalk. You have got a body of work, musical

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creativity that spans almost five decades. And yet you have in the

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past described yourself as an nonmusicians. What do you mean by

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that? When I started using that term, I had appeared at a point

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where there was a huge stress on musicianship, and there were bands

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backs turned to the audience. I playing, very things with their

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didn't come into music from that route, I did not come into music

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from learning an instrument and then standing up and writing songs on it.

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I came out of painting, that is what they studied. I realise that

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contemporary music, Canterbury studio practice in particular, was

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really a way of painting with sound. -- contemporary. It was quite a

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natural transition to move into music. Plus, at that point, you had

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recording studios, a whole set of new instruments, electric

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instruments. You still had to have some basic musicianship to begin

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with, did you play instruments? Not really. I very poorly play the

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guitar, and keyboards. But really not very well. Can you read music?

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No. But most of the people I know can't read music. That's not

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unusual. Most of the state read music. It is fascinating to think of

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you seeing music as meeting painting and visual art, somewhere in the

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middle. Can you explain to be more about that sensibility, how that

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works for you? When you are creating a sound, are using it? Sometimes,

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yes. And I'm thinking in sort of pictorial or sculptural terms, a lot

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of the time. Thinking of a musical space of some kind, and what

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populates that space. I'm not usually thinking in terms of, this

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is in a minor and that is a G Sharp, and I don't know what these

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things mean. I don't really work that way. I am just thinking back to

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the beginning, I know you often say, I do like to look back, but I can

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still picture you in Roxy Music with the long hair, alongside Bryan Ferry

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and the others, playing music. You are performing, do you not believe

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in performing any more? I do particularly like doing it myself.

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Most of what I do in a recording studio. -- do not particularly like.

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It is quite hard to take to the stage. It is a little like asking a

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painter to do a picture on stage for you. It is not the performance art

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in a painting. And what I do isn't really a performance art. I make

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music in the way someone paints a picture. I add things, take things

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away, stretch them very much like a graphic artist. I tell you what,

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let's begin by actually listening to you, the most recent sound you have

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created. You have an album out, called The Ship. Let's get a flavour

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of what you are doing. (AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYS).

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Is that what most of us would now know as ambient music, how would you

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describe it? I think you could call it that. I mean... Ambient is a word

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that I came up with. You invented it. I cannot really say I invented

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the music, more and more people had been trying to work in an area of,

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sort of, spacious, environmental type of music, I gave the movement

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and name, really. I can't claim that I invented the music, but I did

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identify it as a separate category, I guess. Listening to it, the

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features of it that struck me are... It's the sort of music that

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doesn't really seem to have a narrative as such. It is open-ended

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will stop one gets the feeling you could listen to it and then sort of

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zone out for a bit and pick it up again, is that the idea of it? Yes.

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I think of it like a painting. You don't sit and look at the painting

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all the time it is on your wall. You can do something else and turn away.

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The picture is always there but your attention is not always necessary

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there. I wanted to make the kind of music that operated more like that,

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that did not demand continuous, focused attention. But in a sense, I

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have never before come across a musician who, if that is what you

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call yourself, and you debate that, somebody who creates a sound that

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says, I create this sound deliberately with the idea that

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people often want really be listening to it. That's right,

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that's my mission. It is at my methane, that sounds absurd. Why

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bother if you don't really want them to listen. -- if you don't mind me

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saying. When they do listen it is very rewarding. That is different

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with what is happening with muzak, which is when you do start listening

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to it, there is not much happening. Isn't that what a lot of your

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critics claim you have been producing? Some of them. The album

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titles themselves are an indication of what you are about. One of your

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earlier -- early ambient albums, music for airports, indicates you

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wrote something that you think would be suitable for people rushing from

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A to B, catching a flight, and your music could help them destress, calm

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down, I don't know. It seems a decent thing to do. Even that, even

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worse than muzak, elevator music. I don't think there is anything to

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Kelly wrong with having music in elevator is or airports, but I still

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think it is something that composers could address. When that idea

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appeared of elevator music, people just talk already quite bad music

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and made it a little bit worse. And then put it in elevator is. I

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thought, what about taking this job seriously, just like, you know, you

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can have people just paint their war with any old colour they want, or

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you can have people who think about it, interior designers, they called,

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who think about, how could we make this really work well. What I am

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saying is, we use music in all sorts of places all the time. But most of

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the time we don't think very well about what we are doing with it. So

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I want to say that composers should be responsible for that job. They

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should take the responsibility of that job. It seems to me there is

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another interesting thing going on with your music, and it ties into a

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wider cultural point you have in making for years now, which is that

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you feel there is a real sort of lack of attention span about so much

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of what we do and what we create, and I think you have been involved

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with this long now movement, which calls for a more measured, longer

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term approach to human life and all forms of creativity. Your music

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doesn't really have a beginning, middle and end. It just feels like

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it could go on forever. Yes. And in fact, my ambition always, was to

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make pieces of music that are theoretically infinite in length. So

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I invented another word after ambient, which is generative, which

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is music that is made by a set of instructions, essentially, a set of

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rules, and somehow reduces itself for a long period of time. This

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fascinates me because this is you, in recent years, using the latest

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computer technology and software, so you, in essence, load some thematic

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instructions into a computer, and then the actual music, the sound, is

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a sort of randomly generated... Variation on the theme is that you

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have laid down. So you actually haven't written the specific sounds

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that emerge. I haven't written it. And furthermore I won't ever hear

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all of it either, because the piece can carry on creating itself out of

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my presence. So you fundamentally undermine our notion of what the

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composer is. Yes. That's exactly right. Again I was in the first

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person to do this. It was part of the brief of people like Philip

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Glass and Terry Reilly, all of those kind of composers, who started

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working with, not specific pieces of music, but with sets of instructions

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for making pieces of music. The idea was that that is like a little

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genetic message like like a seed, you plant the seed and turns into

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something, it can't predict what it will exactly turn into. On a

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philosophical level that is fascinating, on any given moment

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when you are hearing that sound it is unique and will not ever be

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reproduced ever again. Philosophically that is really

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interesting, on a practical level, even the sort of subtlety and nuance

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that comes with this sort of music, which to a layman like me frankly

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can sound the same, on a practical level, what does an audience get out

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of these extraordinarily rendered nuances? They are not completely

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random. In the same sense that the seed of a flower isn't completely

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random. That seed is something that has slightly randomised a large set

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of instructions that have been carried on the many generations.

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Like a pattern. It is adaptive. It is not just any old set of sounds

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doing any old thing, it is actually quite a honed process, within which

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there is a certain amount of probability, rather than randomness.

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It can behave in some different ways and the permutations can be

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different from one moment to another. But the way I tried to

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explain it to people is, we tend to think of composers as sort of

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architects of sound, so an architect being someone who specifies every

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part of a building, every door handle,... Every little bit is

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consciously created. That's right. That's how we tend to think of

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composers. What I am saying is that we should stop thinking of them as

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architects and start thinking of them as gardeners full people who

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plant things, and those things grow and have their own lives, separate

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from the intentions and desires... The phrase sound landscaping... I

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will be brutally honest, that sounds somewhat pretentious. But that makes

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sense to you. Everything good sounds pretentious at first. You are a

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sound landscaper, not the composer. Yes. I would be quite happy with

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that ascription. Let's actually take some of those fascinating thoughts

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and apply them not just to sound, but the visuals as well, you

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actually went to art school, you came out in the visual sensibility

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before a musical one, and you have done loads of installations, art,

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using light in different ways, if we can bring up some shots here of an

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amazing project you did on the Sydney Opera House, is this

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reflective of your generative idea, you have, I don't know how many

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thousands and thousands of lights that you were projecting onto the

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sales of the Opera House, what was this all about? This was a

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three-week peace, I was project in from a huge battery, a very powerful

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project, onto the sales, and it was a generative piece so I do not know

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what was... If we just breathe at a moment -- freeze that. It looks like

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a fascinating piece of abstract art, but in fact, you had never seen

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before. It came up from the instructions that you have loaded

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into your system. That's right. I had seen individual parts of it, but

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never seen that particular permutation before. Really it is to

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do with permutations. I make all the elements, but then of course the

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elements, since there are several 100 of them, can mutate in millions

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and millions of different ways. I let the process run, and it all

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happens quite slowly, which is an important part of it, while you are

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looking at this, it were not really conscious that it is changing. Until

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you realise a few minutes later that it has changed.

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You are embracing the idea that it does not really have narrative stop

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it is just there as the background and people can take it or leave it.

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Most artists are driven by at the vigil of vision they want to get

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down, on paper, canvas, musical score, what ever. I have the vision,

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it has to do with what for me was the great understanding of evolution

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theory that complexity arises out of simplicity and I think that is such

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an important message because I atheist and one of the most

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difficult things that atheists have to say to the world is all this

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complexity, came from the bottom up. Upon to make the kind of art

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that proves that is possible. The elements are simple, I being

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transparent and now I let them to mutate and it makes this

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extraordinary... It is absolutely the antithesis of the artist as

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creator, god figure. It you do not mind, I want to look back little bit

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at your past. In your primary business, your first real creative

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business which is rock 'n' roll, contemporary music, you worked with

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a lot of people thinking early days of right ferry and Roxy Music, your

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collaboration with Bali, the epitome of the talented, arguably ingenious,

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individual artist. Try to get their vision down and you worked with them

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very happily. Very happy. Even though they were sort of playing

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God... It is not what I want to do but I do not mind other people doing

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it. I see those people as theatrical presences, people who design

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themselves to be theatre. The theatre was the whole history of

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rock music, the whole scenario of rock music. That is an interesting

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phrase, but what about Bowie and other artists such as Prince, the

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claims for those two would be they work transformative in some ways,

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they were geniuses. You buy the idea that individual artists of that

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character can be classed as transformative and genius? I think

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there are clearly some artist that make more difference than others but

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I have another word, which is. There are all fertile people interactive

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and occasionally they come up with something and that something can

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manifest in David Bowie or Prince, or me. They are manifestation of a

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lot of ideas. They did not invent it all themselves. We are making and

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synthesis of history. If I may intrude into your past, if you work

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-- when you are working with Bowie and seminal albums, would you call

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yourselves the producer? What was your role? This creative... Sort of

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effect you are describing is fascinating. We think of Bali and

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think of his music and we think of his music at is it really? --

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Bowie. It is so hard to talk about this because in the popular arts in

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particular, it is repackaging of thousands of things you have heard

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and something that you have added to it. What you added might just be the

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way you put it together. How much did you add to what he did? First of

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all, I was not the producer. I was collaborating with David. David had

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been listening to pay particular album of mine, my first ambient

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album, called discreet music. Months before that he had said that was the

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only thing he could listen to for along time. He was getting over very

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problematic period in his life. I was just the working with the idea

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of landscaping music and he wanted to do that. I would set up sonic

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scenarios for him and he would react to them. It is fascinating

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discussion because it gets to the heart of creativity and

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collaboration. David Bowen is undisputedly fascinating and great

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popular artist. You also have done work on some of the great commercial

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pop albums of our time, from Coldplay, U2, bunch of others as

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well. Is that different process all the same sort of creativity.

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Basically it is designed to sell billions of records. I think they

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are inviting me to work with them for the same reason. They want to go

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somewhere different. People do not realise that artists do not just

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want to have the same heat over and over again. It is boring. The thrill

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of being an artist is going somewhere you have not been before.

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If you have been with the band for along time, everybody gets into

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habits and things tend to turn out the same. You can hear that in a lot

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of bad music. Career prize of the same old thing. -- Reprise. And

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record companies like that. They would hire producers who would say

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to the ban, let's do another one like that. How can we make this song

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stumble like that song that was hit. -- sound more like. I never did

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that. So I think that is why I was asked to produce lots of records.

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You are still very busy, we talked about the ship, your latest project.

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When you see the most exciting, arguably most transformative music

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or maybe other art form is happening right now? What really excites you

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as the new and innovative right now? There is the whole lot of class of

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things that I have little contact with and do not understand very well

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which are complex games like... You see a lot of creativity? This is

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really the future, in away, for some big new interactive art form.

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Really? I do not play them, my kids do, I would dismiss it as

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moneymaking commercial ventures... That is how pop music was thought of

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for very many years at the beginning. That is how everything is

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thought of... Are you getting into that creative sphere? Not really, I

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hardly understand it but I know it is something important. Not from my

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generation but I know where something is going to come from. I

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realise I67 and I am not going to start... The final thought and it

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goes back to the idea that we need to think about different timescale

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for the way we behave on this planet and the way we create also. I

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wonder, when we think in those terms, when you think of your music,

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will it stand the test of centuries and not just decades? It is an

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interesting question. I am surprised that it has stood the test of

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decades, I have to say. Would not have thought music airports, for

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example would still be selling. You know, when Prince died, they found

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thousands and thousands of hits of music of unheard and unpublished

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music. Have you got the same thing? Yes, terrible. I have an archive

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which is enormous. I do not know what is in it. I worked pretty much

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the whole time and I always make little nicks of whatever eye have

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been working on. Even if it is just little test. I put it in the

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archive. We will hear it one day... I hope not, there is some trash in

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there. Thank you so much for being on HARDtalk. Thank you.

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A day of huge contrasts on Tuesday across the UK.

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The southern half of the UK, warm and humid, but cloudy and wet,

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whereas it was very warm and largely sunny across Scotland,

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