Customer Reviews

Shutov Assembly

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

'The Shutov Assembly' is one of Brian Eno's ambient works, which means that it rewards close listening, but can also work as quiet, background music. The tone of the album is primarily a dark, late night feel... but it's not a downer. It has the dreamlike quality of 'Apollo' along with the mystery of 'On Land.' You can get lost in the density of 'Shutov' very easily, which is exactly the point!

Out of the ten tracks, the highlight for me is "Ikebukuro," which is 16 minutes of organic tranquility. This track is probably my all-time favorite piece of music by Brian, and is worth the price of the CD by iteself. In fact, if played at a quiet volume, the whole album serves as an excellent tool for relaxation. Brian's ambient music is definitely my idea of music therapy.

I remember long ago sifting through records and discovered a bunch of Eno albums turned in for resale. At this time I was interested in Eno, knowing he had produced an early Devo album I liked (LONG time ago!) Well, I passed over the opportunity. Then, many years later while at yet another used bin (on to CD's now,) I found a copy of "Shutov" at a rediculously low price. So I picked it up, knowing I would lose next to nothing if I didn't like it. Best cd I have ever found out of a used bin. I certainly would have paid full price for it. His work has an uncanny ability to lull you into deep relaxation, and just as you drift off, it gently taps you on the shoulder to let you know it's still around. If you are interested in music that allows you to think, but doesn't tell you what to think- this is for you. A great tool for artists. This one, Music for Airports, and Apollo all highly recommended.

This is, in a sense, the follow-up to "On Land". It shares the sense of darkness and atmospheric aimlessness of that album, but compounds those senses even further, drifting even further into sparse areas at one turn, near-atonality at others. Every time I've listened to it, I find some new bit in each of the pieces that attracts my focus...if in fact, I listen to it at all, as it makes for excellent 'pure ambience' in addition to being a rewarding listening experience. Describing what's on the album in concrete terms is nigh-impossible, though; adjectives really don't exist for a goodly amount of what's here. Heavy yet ephemerial, tense yet tranquil, a delightful and beautiful collection of contradictory conundrums. Perhaps Eno's finest 'recent' outing.

Along with "Apollo" and "On Land", this album completes a trio of Eno's works which strongly evoke rich landscapes. They all work wonderfully as a backdrop to creative work.

This one is just a scratch less than Ambient 4 or Thursday Afternoon, but is still one of the great ones...very textured, peaceful, moody and ambiguous. This is one of the albums for which Eno realized he had to place a microphone out the window of his studio, because the birdsongs and other natural sounds had become a part of the thinking process for the music he was recording. Wonderful just to hear Eno solo...without a Lanois, Brook, Hassell, Jones, Laraaji or brother Roger in tow.

This album has had a strange afterlife...the best track on the album, Ikebukuro, was remixed and expanded with additional dubbing for Brian's album "Music for Civic Recovery Centre." Eno has referred to this process as 'composting' - the act by which an older piece is digested into and tranformed by a new one. The original version from Shutov is 16 minutes in length, but the "Quiet Club" version runs 45 minutes and features spooky vocoder-treated voices and other surreal oddities. Actually, I found it a bit creepy for the intended use of playing it for people in rehab...but seek it out as it's the companion album to Shutov Assembly.

Man, I love this album.

The lp works on so many different levels- the dark moodiness that permeates it is its beauty; Eno's sparse instrumentation other than his synths is its beauty. The fact that the lp flows beautifully despite any real use of time or meter (reminiscent of Tangerine Dream's "Zeit" lp) is its beauty.

Some of the tracks are reminiscent of "Music for Airports" in terms of repetitious ambience (track 9, "Ikeburuko," is the main example here, with its continuous chimes theme), while the whole lp has the feel of "On Land" in terms of its mood and character.

One of Eno's finest works ever, certainly more so in the last 10 or so years, "The Shutov Assembly" is an amazing lp.

I bought this after hearing a cut from P. Gabriel's "Plus From Us". I already had Eno's "Apollo" which I enjoyed very much. The opening track is the star of this record - probably one of the most beautiful audio textures I have ever heard. The rest of the record is along this same approach - more like audio atmospheres rather than "songs". The bad part is that this CD is so enchanting and relaxing that I always fall asleep after the 5th or 6th song - so I can't vouch for the whole thing! Other songs on here contain Eno's signature of studio ingenuity once again as will be revealed should you buy this CD. Studio engineers and insomniacs alike should not be caught without this little gem.

I've enjoyed Eno's work for nearly 15 years,
and have many favorites - but there is something
almost holy about certain tracks on this disc,
particularly tracks 8 and 9. Surely Mr. Eno
had reached some peak of sheer lucidity when he
did these and "OH, if he would/could only do more
like them"! I listened to these tracks so many times
my disc (which is mauve) turned a dark purple where
tracks 8 and 9 are- I often hear them when they aren't
playing! If you claim to
like either ambient or Eno, this is "must-must" listening!

The 10 pieces on Brian Eno's 1992 ambient collection THE SHUTOV ASSEMBLY were recorded between 1985 and 1990. By this time, however, there were staggering releases in the genre from artists such as Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Bill Laswell, Lustmord, Global Communication, Aphex Twin etc. and artists such as the Orb and KLF had placed Eno's concepts of ambient music into the context of dance music, creating ambient house, one of the '90s most important club trends. As a result, critical and public opinion of this album at the time was mixed-to-negative, with many complaints that the pieces broke no new ground. A single listen belies this statement, as THE SHUTOV ASSEMBLY is unique in Eno's ambient work. Several of the randomly titled pieces have a dark, vaguely disturbing cast far removed from the usual placidity of Eno's ambient work, while others bring the world music aspects of some of Eno's other projects to the ambient sphere. THE SHUTOV ASSEMBLY is an intriguing and satisfying piece of timeless art.

A continuation and expansion of many of the moods and textures that made On Land so unusual. Remarkable hypnotic shifting swirling depths and spaces that slowly emerge, coalesce then dissipate - usually around a core sound.
I have been listening to this assembly for over a decade now (Have not yet heard the remastered version), but I can guarantee that if you appreciate On Land you will definitely want to include this marvelous recording in your collection. It just might be Eno's most perfect offering.