Brian Eno / Before And After Science [Original Masters]
Artist Brian Eno
Album Title: Before And After Science [Original Masters]
Album Cover:
Primary Genre Alternative & Punk: Avant Rock
Format CD
Released 01/00/1977
Reissue Date 05/31/2004
Label Virgin Records Ltd.
Catalog No 7243 5 77292 2 2 / ENOCD4
Bar Code No 7 24357 72922 2
Reissue Yes
Remastered Yes
Packaging Digipack
Tracks
1. No One Receiving (3:52)
(Brian Eno)
2. Backwater (3:43)
(Brian Eno)
3. Kurt's Rejoinder (2:55)
(Brian Eno)
4. Energy Fools The Magician (2:04)
(Arr. : Jones/Brian Eno)
5. King's Lead Hat (3:56)
(Brian Eno)
6. Here He Comes (5:38)
(Brian Eno)
7. Julie With ... (6:19)
(Brian Eno)
8. By This River (3:03)
(Achim Roedelius/Mobi Moebius)
9. Through Hollow Lands (For Harold Budd) (3:56)
(Arr. : Frith/Brian Eno)
10. Spider And I (4:10)
(Brian Eno)
Date Acquired 12/01/2005
Personal Rating
Acquired from Roadrunner Records
Purchase Price 14.99

Web Links

All Music Guide Entry:
Discogs Entry:

Notes

EG Music remastered and released 2004

Reviews
All Music Guide Review:

Review by David Ross Smith

Before and After Science is really a study of "studio composition" whereby recordings are created by deconstruction and elimination: tracks are recorded and assembled in layers, then selectively subtracted one after another, resulting in a composition and sound quite unlike that at the beginning of the process. Despite the album's pop format, the sound is unique and strays far from the mainstream. Eno also experiments with his lyrics, choosing a sound-over-sense approach. When mixed with the music, these lyrics create a new sense or meaning, or the feeling of meaning, a concept inspired by abstract sound poet Kurt Schwitters (epitomized on the track "Kurt's Rejoinder," on which you actually hear samples from Schwitters' "Ursonate"). Before and After Science opens with two bouncy, upbeat cuts: "No One Receiving," featuring the offbeat rhythm machine of Percy Jones and Phil Collins (Eno regulars during this period), and "Backwater." Jones' analog delay bass dominates on the following "Kurt's Rejoinder," and he and Collins return on the mysterious instrumental "Energy Fools the Magician." The last five tracks (the entire second side of the album format) display a serenity unlike anything in the pop music field. These compositions take on an occasional pastoral quality, pensive and atmospheric. Cluster joins Eno on the mood-evoking "By This River," but the album's apex is the final cut, "Spider and I." With its misty emotional intensity, the song seems at once sad yet hopeful. The music on Before and After Science at times resembles Another Green World ("No One Receiving") and Here Come the Warm Jets ("King's Lead Hat") and ranks alongside both as the most essential Eno material.
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