Brian Eno documentary

Untitled from Fjb on Vimeo.

One of the first things Eno discusses is singing in church. That's awesome in it's egalitarian power. I am not a singer. Actually, I think I am tone deaf. Still, I really enjoy singing - I think most people do. Catholicism as an influence was also interesting because though I am non-practicing, I also come from a Catholic family. Another idea I like is his thought on creating places where nobody has been before through music. I think the idea of "transcendence" is often hard to articulate and Eno does a great job of explaining it.

In his current incarnation, Brian Eno reminds me a lot of architect Frank Gehry. They refer to him as a "guru", and I think that is a term that is often overused. But I can see that this is an appropriate term for Eno. I also liked how much he loves pop music. He isn't above working with people who do more mainstream things.

This documentary had a wonderful collection of writers and journalists interviewing Eno. I was surprised to see the journalist Malcolm Gladwell. I am a big fan. He wrote one of my favorite books, Outliers: Stories of Success. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. I also I really liked hearing him talk about Music for Airports with Richard Dawkins.

I have a problem with a lot of music that accompanies most visual art shows. I feel like often having a live band overshadows say, a collection of paintings. And I think that just setting a playlist of pop songs is not always desirable, especially if you have say sensitive or controversial content. Plus, I like their to be discussion about the artwork. People have to feel like they aren't interrupting another kind of performance. I think this idea of ambient music is the solution to my problem. I would like to compose some music for a body of my artwork.