Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The darker side of Eno, April 3, 2000
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.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
over the hills and far away, September 30, 2001
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.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
15, 150,1500 stars, September 22, 2000
I'll have to admit the fact that when I first heard this lp, I didn't like it. It was too dark, brooding, and all together too weird for even my tastes. I was in love with "Music for Airports," and "Apollo," and was looking for the same kinds of atmospherics and simplicity that these 2 lps created.It's been 13 years after the fact, and 1000's of plays later, on lps, tapes, and now cd, and I cam never get enough of this lp. The atmospherics are beyond ecstacy, and while the mood is dense and dark, it is Eno's crowning achievement, and moreover helped me create my current home sound system, when,b after reading an article by Eno about how he would play the lp, I played this lp with 2 pair of speakers as opposed to one and with a cheap 4 channel mixer I owned for club djing I was doing. The results were earth shattering to me. The whole world opened up. I played the lp at dusk, and the crickets outside by patio door chimed in harmony to it. My neighbors would walk by and marvel at how nature sounded better at my place, and I grinned, never telling them why that was. This lp has absolute sacred value to me, and I play it every evening before I retire for the night, and I sleep well. It is best listened to with excellent pairs of speakers that allow you to get surround sound, then to set levels to allow the bass to work on its own against Eno's use of prepared soundscapes and his electronics. This is your excuse to get more speakers! The lp is so good that I implore everyone to get it. Your life will be more enriched by it.
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