On Land

Brian Eno | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 31, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Editions Eg Records
• ASIN: B000003S2O
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,113 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #59 in Music > Indie Music > Dance & DJ > Ambient

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential recording

Released in 1982, On Land is Eno's most mature, perfect ambient work. Combining low, rumbling synths with eerie banging and clanking and the occasional wild-animal chirp or grumble, this recording places the listener alone, in the midst of a massive piece of sonic landscaping. And Eno has left no detail to chance. In fact, the work is so complete that when Eno suggests a windswept plain, the listener gets a chill. When trumpeter Jon Hassell bays with a softly disturbing imitation of a wounded beast, the first instinct is to scan the horizon for its glinting eyes. So subtle, intuitive, and well paced is this recording that as it slips quietly from the speakers and into every corner of the listening room, it transforms the space into a gently pulsing sound environment that seems strangely out of time and away from everything. It's a place you'll be drawn to time and time again. An ageless masterwork. --S. Duda

Product Description

The transfer from the Original Masters has been undertaken with great care by Simon Heyworth. All four albums have been Mastered using 'Class A' Analogue Electronics combined with the best Analogue to Digital conversion. No attempt has been made to re-equalize, remix or in any way tamper with or alter the original EQ'ed analogue production masters. These are the Original Masters as Brian Eno intended them to be heard. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Less than music - and more., December 11, 2004

By 

spiral_mind (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ambient 4: On Land (Audio CD)

Imagine sitting on a beachside deck some warm evening with a microphone capturing all the noise of the environment: waves washing up, crickets chirping, gulls singing, the neighbors' barbecue maybe becoming audible when their talking gets loud enough. Maybe some kid is driving down the next block with his stereo rattling the pavement. Maybe somebody's dog is barking far enough away that if you weren't listening closely you wouldn't even notice it. On Land is an exploration of this kind of idea in sound, but intended to re-create places far away or only imagined. Sound strange? In the world of Brian Eno I'd expect nothing less.

Basically it's an album exploring the idea of music or sound that gives a feeling of a certain place. It also perfectly accomplishes his objective with ambient music, which is that it should be "as ignorable as it is interesting." Turn it up and it can bring all kinds of alien landscapes to life in your mind; turn it down and it colors the room subliminally, barely noticeably. Where the previous three in the Ambient series were subdued and trancelike through repetition, this one is evolving all the time and never repeats itself.

And with that, On Land is probably the hardest of all Eno discs to describe. It would be one thing if it was simply made with treated notes or tape loops, as with Discreet Music or the previous Ambient albums. It would be one thing if he was using minimal melodies meant to be ignored. On Land is all and none of those. It uses musical elements but isn't music; it's minimalist but not simple or repetitive. It's pure atmosphere. Forms don't exist. If you're wondering what moods you may find here, just look at the titles. "Tal Coat" is somehow electronic-sounding but purely organic. "Shadow" is a vague lurking moment of doubt. "A Clearing" is a four-minute synth haze radiating pure tranquility. It's not all soothing, but if it's left at a low audible level the dark moments won't really be disturbing.

Comparing this disc to any other ambient music is always an apples/oranges prospect, but I think the difference makes this the most pure and timeless Eno album out there. At the very least it sounds like nothing else I've ever heard, except maybe the sounds of nature itself.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The darker side of Eno, April 3, 2000

By 

DAC Crowell - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Land (Audio CD)

When this came out, I was so used to "Discrete Music" and the previous "Music for Airports" that I had a goodly bit of trouble wrapping my head around this set of rumbly, dark, murky atmospherics. But over the years, I've come to have a special love for this release. This is not the Satie-like ambient of those other two works, but rather like a soundtrack recording for a very obscure, dark film in which most action (action?) is obscured or is occuring just off-lens. Swampy, midnight music. Whereas it's easy to describe some other Eno works, this thing, even some 20 or so years on, defies adequate description. Suffice to say, it's something worth having for most anyone, especially if you're someone who often finds yourself awake at 2-3 AM and have trouble finding music for just that 'certain atmosphere' for the time of day. A singular, beautiful, and intriguing release.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars over the hills and far away, September 30, 2001

By 

"katja_r" - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Land (Audio CD)

I enjoy the music of Mr Brian Eno on this CD immensely. "ON LAND" contains environmental music which invokes for me a wide range of emotions. THE LOST DAY is a brooding piece from which I experience remorse, sadness and dismay. The piece titled UNFAMILIAR WIND (LEEKS HILLS) draws me slowly into a palpable experience of walking into a marsh. These are mind-pictures of the experiences of remembering a place rather than picture postcards. A word of caution about the term "ambient". In 1982, when Mr Eno first released this album, there was no classification, or permit me to write, marketing term, for ambient cds. This cd has no similarity with what currently is classified as "ambient" music. I'm afraid someone anticipating "ambient" music within the current context will be as disappointed as one reviwer who wrote, "Brian Eno's 'ambient music' is certainly ambient ... but it's certainly not music ... I'll bet plants love it. As for me, I'm just going to let it lull me to sleep." In the liner notes, Mr Eno explains some of the thought processes utilised in creating this landmark piece. "From 'Another Green World' onwards I became interested in exaggerating and inventing rather than replicating spaces, experimenting in particular with various techniques of time distortion. This record represents one culmination of that development and in it the landscape has ceased to be a backdrop for something else to happen in front of: Instead, everything that happens is a part of the landscape. There is no longer a sharp distinction between foreground and background." His instrumentation includes electro-mechanical and acoustic instruments as well as non-instruments like pieces of chain and sticks and stones. Mr Eric Tamm, author of "Vertical Colour of Sound", writes, "What sets ON LAND apart musically from most of Eno's quiet, contemplative music is that here the element of timbre takes over to the point of there being very few pitches in use, and often nothing that could really be called harmony." The musicians who participated in this project have successful careers of their own, Laraaji, Mr Michael Beinhorn, Mr Axel Gros, Mr Bill Laswell, Mr Jon Hassell, Mr Michael Brook, and Mr Daniel Lanois. I have done the best I could to explain what this album is and how it affects me. If you are interested in an extremely influential piece of music from the late twentieth century, this CD will interest you.