Mixing Colours

Back in the spring I bought the then just released album by ambient/ piano brothers Brian and Roger Eno, Mixing Colours. Brian and Roger had swapped musical pieces back and forth for the previous fifteen years, Roger playing and recording piano pieces and sending them to Brian, who then manipulated them on his iPad. I'm sure Brian had a full philosophy and working practice to his manipulations of the sounds, a process, and that it wasn't just a case of fucking about with a few FX and virtual buttons. He used to work on them while on the train, the landscape rushing by as the piano and keyboard pieces played in his ears. 

The eighteen tracks/ soundscapes are all named after colours (Ultramarine, Blonde, Deep Saffron) or natural phenomena (Spring Frost, Snow, Sand) and sometimes when I listen to it, it sounds a bit like a paint colour chart catalogue pressed onto vinyl, too polite and too tasteful. Sometimes though, it is just what I need, a meditative, minimal collection of short pieces, sounds acting as balm that gently drift by. And if that sounds a bit New Age then so be it. 

This is Ultramarine, piano notes and keyboard chords taken slowly. 

Obsidian is a bit unsettling, a church organ sound playing, a gentle ambient thrum and the eerie landscape of the Fens.