ALBUM REVIEW: Brian Eno – Small Craft On a Milk Sea

I’ll start with this. I had never listened to Brian Eno before, I guess that with new music being released constantly, you forget to look back at some of the original artists who defined what we have today. It was today I received Brian Eno’s new LP “Small Craft On a Milk Sea”, and it seriously blew my mind.
Firstly, this is on Warp Records, and from what I have heard about Brian Eno’s past work, it seems like a perfect label to release this album on.
Brian Eno is a master of minimalism and ambient music, he knows how it works and this shows. “Small Craft On a Milk Sea”, is beautiful, sophisticated and above all fucking awesome. Its a haunting album, I’ve never quite encountered something like it, you can really feel the passion put into it.
Listening to the first two tracks on “Small Craft On a Milk Sea”, already had me listening intently. Both of them eery piano fueled tracks, which in fact remind me of film soundtracker, Thomas Newman, if you haven’t heard Thomas Newman then check out the “American Beauty Soundtrack”, you’ll recognize it.
At track four, the beat picks up, becoming darker and more sinister. Its odd, the drums actually remind me of Holy Fuck, whether this is where Holy Fuck got some influence I’ll never know, but its got a distinct characteristic that works with the rest of the music.
The fact that you can make a album that has a track like “Paleosonic”, a fuzzy disjointed track, which actually sounds like a printer at one point. But also have “Emerald and Stone” a minimal piano track, that feels as if it where written underwater. They truly are very different, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them on different album, even written by different artists, but somehow, it works. It hard not to get all philosophical about this album, as there are tons of little aspects about it, going from the panning synths, to the tiny echoes, the soft guitars, and the loud guitars.
This album is an honest piece of work, artistic, fresh and something that everyone should own.
However there was also a bonus CD, which contained “Square Chain”, “Bimini Twist” and “Invisible”, all amazing tracks. “Square Chain” really got me, a echoey harmonic guitar over sounds of that could be from space, definitely my cup of tea.

Emerald and Stone – Brian Eno

Square Chain – Brian Eno



One Comment

  1. Robin Buckley wrote:

    Only knew Brian Eno because of his career defining album, Ambient 1/Music for Airports. Definitely check this one out now as well.