Brian Eno has been just about everywhere in music in the past 40 years. He's pioneered ambient music, produced mega−albums like Talking Heads' "Remain in Light" (1980) and written pseudo−pop records that can go toe−to−toe with anything in the '70s pantheon. Now the maestro is well into middle age, but his ambition has hardly dulled: just listen to his latest album, "Small Craft on a Milk Sea," and see for yourself.
The album opens with a few relatively tame ambient pieces. "Emerald and Lime" begins with lilting synth figures that quickly bloom into broader chords and flourishes, making the otherwise simple chord progression affecting. Eno's keen tonal sensibilities are all at play here — the synth sounds go perfectly with the vocals, making the track tonally cohesive. His experience in ambient music has given him a great ear for synthesized sounds and percussion.
Eno's years of collaboration with artists and groups as diverse as David Bowie, Robert Fripp and U2 have given him a broad tonal palette to draw from. On his latest album, he works with Leo Abrahams, a guitarist and programmer, as well as Jon Hopkins, an electronic musician from London. Their contributions are palpable on tracks like "Paleosonic," where Abrahams' metal−esque guitar runs cut through a gritty synth wash background. Eno's dynamic synth work complements Abrahams' playing well, making such segments feel more like live interaction than studio−prepared material.
"A Small Craft on a Milk Sea" emphasizes shorter song lengths, with most songs ending under the four−minute mark. This strategy harks back to Eno's earlier experiments in ambient music on "Another Green World," (1975) before he produced lengthier songs on albums like "Ambient 1: Music for Airports" (1978).
Eno's opting for more concise song times prevents redundancy, the Achilles' heal of most ambient music. His ideas are generally expressed within a few minutes and fade out just as they've expended their poignancy.
However, the album is not without a few clunkers. Even a merciful two minutes isn't short enough for "Bone Jump," a hokey shuffle with a spooky synth melody that sounds like something out of an '80s nightmare. The track "Dust Shuffle" turns from a promisingly rhythmic track into a generic dance beat that lasts for the majority of the song. Even though Eno adds layers of vibrant blips and bleeps over the rhythmic backdrop, he fails to make the track any more interesting.
Despite the presence of a few bland tracks, the album runs more dynamically than most of Eno's ambient cannon. At its worst, his past atmospheric work would dwell on a single element for a glacial 45 minutes, keeping the album too static for regular listening. This is hardly a problem with "Small Craft on a Milk Sea," where the songs run quickly and fluidly.
Much of the album's initial liveliness comes from the propulsive emphasis on rhythm and percussion. "2 Forms of Anger" begins with a simple electronic beat before adding layers of live tribal−esque drumming and ethereal synth chords. The track eventually breaks out into a rock climax, with Abrahams' distorted guitar exacerbated all the more by Eno's abrasive production.
Unfortunately, "Small Craft on a Milk Sea" runs out of steam by the end. An excess of meditative, low−key soundscapes bogs down the last third of the album. While the earlier portions of the record benefit from a mix of energetic and contemplative tracks, the album's conclusion feels static and redundant. "Written, Forgotten" feels interchangeable with the lengthier song that follows it, "Late Anthropocene."
Even though "Small Craft on a Milk Sea" sees Brian Eno venturing beyond the ambient aesthetic that has dominated his recent work, it fails to capture the succinct dynamism that made his earliest work so great.
