Harold Budd & Brian EnoThe Pearl
You don't have to be easily susceptible to claustrophobia to appreciate ambient music, but it helps. It's surely a cliche or rock crit conceit by now, but when I feel like the noises of the world are closing in on me, there's no better escape than the ethereal soundscapes of a Brian Eno or a Harold Budd. It should come as little surprise then, that when those two masters of atmospheric music collaborated, the results were heavenly. 1984's The Pearl was particularly successful. The album is so serenely beautiful that it makes allegations that ambient music is inherently boring or hokey "new-age" seem superficial and foolish. My favorite ambient record outside of Eno's seminal masterpiece Ambient 1: Music for Airports is at times comforting and at other times haunting, but never less than engaging. Ambient music has often been compared to visual art in that it can be the subject of active appreciation, yet may also easily be pushed to background and still greatly enrich a setting. The comparison is an apt. Before I began writing this entry I was focused intently on the minute details of Budd's faint piano and Eno's production; as I write these words, on the other hand, I am a passive listener. Yet the mood has sustained itself--The Pearl still glistens.
Music from another Eno/Budd collaboration, The Plateaux of Mirror.
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