Brian Eno 'Sonori Portraits 1'

Tracklist and MP3 samples:
Distant Hill [Hi, Lo]
Asian River
Radiothesia III [Hi, Lo]
Swanky
Theme from 'Creation' [Hi, Lo]
White Mustang (with Daniel Lanois)
Left Where It Fell (With Jah Wobble)
Spinning Away (with John Cale)
Stravinsky [Hi, Lo]
Saint Tom
Theme for 'Opera' (with Roger Eno)
Neroli
Brian Eno Speaks.

A CD compilation released as a celebration of Brian Eno's contribution to ambient music.

Reviews

"An interesting release of a CD accompanied by a book, all within one box. The CD gathers pieces from "Music For Film III", "Spinner", "The Drop" and some rarities, besides Eno himself commenting on some questions referring to his music in a recording of six minutes. The book, of the same size as a CD and 96 pages, contains essays on Brian Eno (In Italian and also English), as well as photographs. This is a very well designed release that will please Brian Eno's followers and that can also be ideal for those who are not very familiar with Eno's career and wish to contact his music and his artistic ideas."

"The booklet comprises four chapters: 1. Sound Ambience: Erik Satie, John Cage, Brian Eno; 2. A [1990] Conversation With Eno; 3. Driving; and 4. Ambient Music. In addition, there is a five-page chronology of Eno's work in the music industry (including a discography) and two pages of "Eno On-Line" — URLs that link to information on Eno. The text is informative, substantive reading; several small black-and-white photos of Eno are thrown in for good measure.

The three diverse Glitterbug tracks on the Sonora disc are precious, as they're difficult to obtain in any format. While some of Sonora's ambience borders on environmental music, Eno detours and ventures into original hybridized forms on "Stravinsky" (classical synth), "Spinning Away" (mood-evoking vocal pop), and "Saint Tom" (atmospheric new age). The upbeat "Swanky" (from The Drop) and the percussive "Radiothesia III" (from Glitterbug) are ambient highlights. The final track, "Brian Eno Speaks", is a six-minute interview segment in which Eno expresses views similar to those presented on the Imaginary Landscapes video recording.

He speaks of creating musical landscapes while attempting to remove himself and his personality from those landscapes. He also expresses his renewed interest in acoustic instruments, and makes several analogies between music and painting, as he often does in interviews and in his own writing.

A reasonably priced Italian import, Sonora Portraits is geared toward Eno devotees: those same fans who invested in (and were enlightened by) More Dark Than Shark (Faber & Faber, 1986), Imaginary Landscapes (Mystic Fire, 1989), and A Year With Swollen Appendices (Faber & Faber, 1996)."

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