Dearest readers, I am excited to offer this small write-up to you in the spring of 2023 as it marks my first emergence from my post-book-publication hiatus. I really felt like I’d said all I had to say about music, and the act of publishing gave me pause to contemplate the vastly-transformed landscape of how the world consumes and engages music in the 21st century and how it left me feeling “old and in the way.”
However, upon hearing the latest collaborative effort from my hero, the great Brian Eno, I felt that familiar compulsion to return to my desk and start writing once more to share the joy of my discovery. How fitting that this stimulus came from the same artist who inspired my life-long passion for the ambient music genre at a young age - that he, more than 20 years later, would continue to be a wellspring of creative force within me to reach out to my readers once again.
Eno’s representation in my archive demonstrates my commitment to his catalogue. In addition to the dozens of art prints, books, lithographs, 412 digital releases, and other miscellanea I’ve acquired, I’ve successfully built a sizable library of most major releases issued in the vinyl format by the artist. My library to date comprises 49 of his best-loved works totaling 77 discs of content, including the highly sought-after
Music For Installations 9LP limited edition box set. After resolving to retire (mostly) from record collecting, I’ve yet to claim vinyl editions of his releases from 2022 forward, however the consistent quality of those works often gives me moments of reconsideration. Perhaps a few exceptions for my hero’s occasional releases are in order.
At the age of 74, Mr. Eno has shown no sign of slowing down, himself. In 2021, he and his brother Roger Eno premiered their first-ever performance together at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, an ancient theatre of the Acropolis as part of the Athens Epidaurus Festival. Then in 2022, he released the brilliant and critically-lauded album,
FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE, featuring his vocals as primary focus across an entire album for the first time since 2005's
Another Day On Earth. His work continued in 2023, with a special limited instrumental edition of
FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE titled,
Forever Voiceless for Record Store Day. And on May 5, 2023, Eno released an all-new collaborative album titled
Secret Life with the young producer “Fred Again..”
Frederick John Philip Gibson, (born 19 July 1993) known professionally as Fred again.. or simply FRED, is a British record producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and DJ. The new album is not the first time the two composers have met. At age 16, Gibson joined an a cappella group at Brian Eno's studio in London, who was his family's neighbour at the time. And in 2014, he collaborated as co-producer and songwriter with Eno and Karl Hyde on their two project albums
Someday World and
High Life. This was particularly interesting as Gibson exhibits a similar approach to that of Hyde’s notable work with Underworld where his use of vocals is that of rhythmic device rather than communicating directly through language, as most-famously demonstrated in their anthem, “Born Slippy .NUXX.”
While Gibson may likely be the youngest collaborator of Eno’s to date, he is no novice to the musical world. Gibson won Producer of the Year at the Brit Awards 2020 - the youngest producer to ever win the title. And another fun bit of trivia - his artist name came from a line in the live action movie “Scooby-Doo” where Fred, (in the voice of Daphne) says: “I’m Fred Again..”.
In addition to Gibson’s own album catalogue, he collaborated with Four Tet and Skrillex on the track "Baby again.." released on the
USB EP in 2022, played several shows with both artists in 2023, and performed with them for the closing set at Coachella. There are notable parallels in Gibson and Four Tet’s album production techniques and their penchant for glitchy-yet-organic lowercase-styled sonic effects, particularly with their manipulation of vocals and minimalist percussion.
Secret Life was released on Four Tet’s own label, Text Records, and Four Tet called it “the most beautiful album of 2023.”
Throughout his long, illustrious career, Eno has been famously committed to never making the same album twice. And the ambient genre is a dangerous and notorious field where a composer could easily get comfortable embracing the “less-is-more” aesthetic and philosophy resulting in pleasant but well-tread, familiar territory. However, his new collaboration with Fred Again.. maintains his consistent track record of pioneering and refreshingly-contemporary content. Fred lends his unique voice (both artistically and literally), and his modern mastery of album production to Eno’s refined veteran technique and the result is purely inspiring.
Secret Life is a work of lush and ethereal ambient pop in the spirit of the finest post-minimal works. Gibson’s vocal contributions were a surprise for an ambient record, but are employed sparingly to evoke emotion and masterfully-processed such that they in no way detract from the ambience. From the delicate and longing evocations of the album’s stand-out lyrical track, “Secret” to the sparsely minimalist but soulful fragmented vocal crooning of “Chest,”
Secret Life is a fragile and textural album-wide soundscape of yearning.
RYM user foxtrot_stowaway poetically summarizes the nature of the album saying, “It's incredibly beautiful but also full of these massive, aching pangs of nostalgia/regret. It is epically life affirming but also epically devastating.” This is most-evident in the chiefly-lyrical track “Secret,” with its slowly-unfolding lo-fi lyrics:
“I miss you so much… but you’re not out of sight… cause I’m still… breathing… in my secret life… hold on, hold on, my brother… my sister, hold on tight… finally found my whole life… So I've been marchin' 'til the mornin', marchin' through the night… moving cross the borders… of my secret life… of my secret life.”
This is an album that, much in its spirited thematic romanticism, stretches time, itself. It’s a newfound favourite post-minimalist work, approaching the accolades of Max Richter’s epic 8-and-a-half-hour
Sleep album from 2015. The triumph here is
Secret Life’s low-fidelity execution of marrying the dissonance between fractured and fragmented microtonal cut-up music and soothingly warm, organic mellow ambience.
Secret Life easily charts among my top releases of 2023.
