another green world (1975) - brian eno: editions eg 1982 reissue, ENO-3

Brian Eno is one of those musicians who is revered by other musicians, but is widely unknown among regular slobs buying records because when his music came out it was just too weird for the squares.

Another Green World is a perfect example.  See, people think of the 90's as the decade when electronica was born but it wasn't.  It wasn't even the 80's with the explosion of synth bands (like Flock of Seagulls or Depeche Mode).  Electronica was born in the 70's with guys like Eno trying to figure out what cool things they could do with sound.  Okay, technically it started in the late 60's when Robert Moog created the synthesizer and Zappa was screwing around with overdubbing and tape looping, but that's splitting hairs.  In the mid-70's guys like Eno were out on the fringe playing with the sonic play-doh of electronics, eventually bringing it to guys like David Bowie (Low and Heroes in 1977) and Peter Gabriel (the "melt face" album in 1980).

Featuring guest musicians like Robert Fripp, John Cale, and Phil Collins (for all his pop songs, the dude was a pretty amazing drummer), Another Green World clearly has prog/experimental bona fides.  It's also the first of Eno's solo "ambient music" albums, though his collaboration with Fripp on No Pussyfooting could conceivably called his first effort with "ambient" music.  Green World also marked a move away from the more rock-like roots of Roxy Music and his initial solo works of Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (1974), to a more minimalist and contemplative place. 

Side 1: Sky Saw Over Fire Island St. Elmo's Fire In Dark Trees The Big Ship I'll Come Running Another Green World
Side 2: Sombre Reptiles Little Fishes Golden Hours Becalmed Zawinul / Lava Everything Merges With The Night Spirits Drifting

The thing about Eno's "ambient" music is that even though it's minimalist, it isn't simple.  There's a lot going on in there, from some odd percussion patterns to strangely oscillating melody.  Songs like Sky Saw or In Dark Trees blend pseudo-primitive drumming with futuristic tonal elements to create a sort of paranoid quality, while other songs like St. Elmo's Fire or I'll Come Running are more accessible, and would be right in place on Warm Jets or Tiger Mountain.

And even though the album as a whole can rightly be thought a self-indulgent exercise in pretension and intellectual musical snobbery, there are some silly bits to it.  The entire song I'll Come Running is an ode to some guy so obsessed with a gal he's offering to be her shoe-tying slave, and the liner notes includes descriptions like "unnatural sounds" on Sombre Reptiles, and "uncertain piano" and "spasmodic percussion" on Golden Hours.

Green World stands on it's own as a pretty remarkable album.  When one tacks on how ahead of the curve it was, it becomes even more impressive.  And when one considers its offspring (Bowie's Heroes, Low, and Scary Monsters; Gabriel's "melt face" and Security), its iconic status makes a lot more sense.

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