Album of the Month: Eno’s Another Green World

Guitars and Electronics at the Rock’n’Roll Crossroads

Some albums stand loudly and proudly at the crossroads of musical culture and history.

I think of Sgt. Pepper’s (The Studio as Canvas), Nevermind (Grunge Arrives!), or Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Pop Victorious!). It is not that these artists invented or defined these ideas; it’s simply that they embodied them at a particular moment in time.

In 1975, Brian Eno stood at a similar crossroads. The album that materialised, Another Green World, does so in a remarkably quiet and humble fashion.

Brian Eno was not the first rock musician to use synthesizers and drum machines. In Germany, the likes of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and Kraftwerk were building their entire sound around them. Prog rockers such as Emerson, Lake and Palmer were using synthesizers extensively.

Eno had come to prominence as a member of Roxy Music, appearing on their first two albums, before going solo, releasing Here Come the Warm Jets and…