Brian Eno

1969—1971

In 1969, after separating from his wife, Eno moved to London. He became involved with the Scratch Orchestra and the Portsmouth Sinfonia. Eno's first appearance on a commercially released recording is the Deutsche Grammophon edition of The Great Learning (1971) by Cornelius Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra, which features Eno as one of the voices on the track "Paragraph 7".^[21] He also appeared on the soundtrack to Berlin Horse (1970), a nine-minute avant-garde art film by Malcolm Le Grice.^[22][23] For three months, Eno worked as paste-up assistant for the advertisement section of a local paper. He quit and became an electronics dealer by making new cabinets for old speakers and selling them to friends.^[14]

In 1971, Eno co-founded the glam rock band Roxy Music following a chance meeting with the saxophonist Andy Mackay.^[24] Eno said later: "If I'd walked ten yards further on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now."^[25] He played on their first two albums, Roxy Music (1972) and For Your Pleasure (1973). He used the EMS VCS 3 synthesiser and is credited for tape effects, backing vocals and production. Initially, Eno did not appear on stage at Roxy Music shows, but operated the mixing desk off-stage, where he had a microphone to sing backup vocals. After Roxy Music secured a record deal, Eno joined them on stage playing the synthesiser and became known for his flamboyant and androgynous costumes and makeup.^[14] After the For Your Pleasure tour ended in mid-1973, Eno quit Roxy Music due to disagreements with the lead singer, Bryan Ferry.^[26]

1973—1974

In 1973, Eno released (No Pussyfooting), a collaboration with the King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp. It was recorded using tape looping and delay systems, later known as Frippertronics. The record is hailed as groundbreaking for developments in drone and what would later be termed ambient music. In 1975, Eno and Fripp released Evening Star and completed a European tour.^{[citation needed]}

Eno's first solo album, Here Come the Warm Jets, was released in February 1974. Several songs feature Fripp on guitar. The album came to be regarded as a classic.^[27] The Warm Jets tour ended early when Eno suffered a collapsed lung.^[28] After he recovered, Eno worked mostly in studios.^[28]

In February 1974, Eno embarked on his first tour as a solo artist, backed by London pub rock band the Winkies. To promote the tour, they recorded a session for John Peel and the single "Seven Deadly Finns", backed with the B-side "Later On", which was a sound collage composed of various short segments from the No Pussyfooting LP and was released that March. However, Eno was forced to cancel the remainder of the tour after he suffered from a collapsed lung following the sixth date of the tour at the Guildford Civic Hall, and his working relationship with the Winkies ceased following this.^{[citation needed]}

Eno contributed to Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy (1974) by Lady June.^[29] Between 1970 and 1974, Eno played clarinet with the Portsmouth Sinfonia, an orchestra founded by Gavin Bryars that accepted players of any skill, and produced their first two albums.^[30] Eno said the mixture of skilled and unskilled players "was like a very blurry version, a soft-focus version, of classical music, and it produced some beautiful music ... There were some exquisite moments — the mixture of chance and choice."^[31]

Eno released his second solo album, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), in November 1974. Featuring collaborators such as Phil Collins, Phil Manzanera, Robert Wyatt and Andy Mackay, the album featured numerous efforts of art pop and rock, but distanced itself from the psychedelic qualities of Here Come the Warm Jets. Taking Tiger Mountain contains the track "Third Uncle", which has been regarded as one of Eno's best-known songs of his pop and rock phase, owing in part to its later cover by Bauhaus. Critic Dave Thompson wrote that the song is "a near punk attack of riffing guitars and clattering percussion" which "could, in other hands, be a heavy metal anthem, albeit one whose lyrical content would tongue-tie the most slavish air guitarist".^[32]

1974—1976

In January 1975, Eno was hit by a taxi cab and spent several weeks recuperating at home. During this time, Eno's friend, the artist Judy Nylon, brought him a record of harp music. After she had left, he put on the record and lay down. He realised the amplifier volume was too low and that one speaker was not playing, but he was too weak to get up and correct it.^[33][34] He said: "This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music – as part of the ambience of the environment just as the colour of the light and sound of the rain were parts of the ambience."^[33]

In November 1975, Eno released his third album, Another Green World. The album has been recognised by critics as a "universally acknowledged masterpiece"^[35] and "breathtakingly ahead of its time".^[36] The music journalist Robert Christgau rated it A+, calling it "the aural equivalent of a park on the Moon; oneness with nature under conditions of artificial gravity".^[37] AllMusic described it as "a universally acknowledged masterpiece".^[38]

In 1975, Eno and the artist Peter Schmidt published Oblique Strategies, a set of cards intended to help artists overcome creative problems. Each card bears an instruction, such as "honour thy error as a hidden intention" or "discard an axiom".^[39] In December 1975, Eno released Discreet Music.^{[citation needed]} The first side comprises synthesiser notes in varying patterns, while the second side comprises variations on Pachelbel's Canon, creating a "constantly shifting blanket of sound".^[34] In September 1976, Eno recorded an album with the German band Harmonia, Welcome, which went unreleased until 1997.^[40]

In 1978, Eno coined the term ambient music to describe his work.^[34] He said in 2010: "All the signs were in the air all around with ambient music in the mid 1970s, and other people were doing a similar thing. I just gave it a name ... Giving something a name can be just the same as inventing it. By naming something you create a difference. You say that this is now real. Names are very important."^[41]

1977—1979

Eno and Fripp released the album Evening Star in 1975.^[40] It was followed in 1977 by Cluster & Eno with the German duo Cluster, comprising former members of Harmonia.^[40] In December 1977, Eno released Before and After Science, featuring electronic and artistic rock compositions with vocals. The Allmusic reviewer David Ross Smith described it as "a study of 'studio composition' whereby recordings are created by 'deconstruction and elimination'".^[42]

Eno contributed to the David Bowie albums Low (1977), Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979), known as the Berlin Trilogy.^[43] Eno acted as assistant director, providing feedback and suggesting unusual ways to approach the tracks.^[44] The Guardian suggested that "Warszawa" from Low, whose backing track was written by Eno, was Eno's best-known work.^[40]

In 1978, Eno released the first of his Ambient series, Ambient 1: Music for Airports. He intended to create a soundtrack that could be played in airports.^[33] Eno created tape loops from sounds including notes sung by a trio of female singers and piano played by Robert Wyatt, and used them to create cycles of repeating sounds.^[33] In 2016, Pitchfork named Music for Airports the greatest ambient album.^[45]

Eno produced the second album by the American band Talking Heads, More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), recording them live in their rehearsal space in Long Island City, New York.^[46] Eno went on to produce Talking Heads' next albums, Fear of Music (1979) and Remain in Light (1980).^[46] Rolling Stone wrote that "Talking Heads found the ideal producer in Brian Eno: their trilogy of albums with him made the band's reputation".^[47] The critic Simon Reynolds wrote that Eno and Talking Heads developed a "group identity", likening them to George Martin and the Beatles.^[46] Eno and Talking Heads experimented with the communal African method of making music, by which individual parts mesh as polyrhythms.^[48] The Nigerian musician Fela Kuti's album Afrodisiac (1973) was their template.^[49][50]

1980s

In 1980, Eno released Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror, a collaboration with the composer Harold Budd, comprising mostly processed piano pieces.^[34] Eno scored Herbert Vesely's film Egon Schiele – Exzess und Bestrafung (1980).^[51] Eno produced Ambient 3: Day of Radiance (1981) by the American musician Laraaji. It is reminiscent of gamelan music, with ringing tones and repetitive rhythms.^[34]

In 1981, Eno and the Talking Heads singer, David Byrne, released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, comprised almost entirely of samples of sources including Arabic singers, radio DJs and an exorcist.^[52] Musicians had used similar techniques before, but, according to the Guardian writer Dave Simpson, sampling had never before been used "to such cataclysmic effect".^[52] Eno felt the album's innovation was to make samples "the lead vocal".^[53]

In 1982, Eno released Ambient 4: On Land, inspired by his childhood memories of the countryside. Pitchfork described it as "fantastically creepy ... a dark piece of music with a serious sense of tension".^[34] In 1983, Eno collaborated with his brother, Roger, and Daniel Lanois on the ambient album Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. It was commissioned by Al Reinert for his 1985 film For All Mankind, a documentary about the Apollo 11 landing. It includes "zero-gravity country music", with slide guitar treated with long reverb.^[54] The Guardian described the track "An Ending (Ascent)" as one of Eno's "crowning achievements".^[40]

The Irish rock band U2 enlisted Eno and Lanois to produce their fourth studio album, The Unforgettable Fire (1984).^[55] The bassist, Adam Clayton, said U2 were "looking for something that was a bit more serious, more arty".^[56] Eno was hesitant to work with a rock band and initially told U2 he was considering retiring from music to become a video artist.^[57][58] The guitarist, the Edge, said Eno was intimidated by U2's "lack of irony".^[59] Eno was eventually persuaded by what he called "U2's lyrical soul in abundance".^[60] The Unforgettable Fire was voted the 29th-best record of the year in Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics published in The Village Voice.^[61]

In 1985, Eno released Thursday Afternoon, comprising loops of piano, static and synth. It was promoted as the first album composed with the compact disc in mind.^[34] Eno and Lanois produced U2's next album, The Joshua Tree (1987).^[62] It went to number one in over 20 countries,^[63] including the UK, where it was certified platinum in 48 hours.^[64][65] It was nominated for four Grammy Awards, winning Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.^[66] Rolling Stone cited The Joshua Tree in its list of the 500 greatest albums.^[67]

1990s

During the 1990s, Eno worked increasingly with self-generating musical systems, the results of which he called generative music. This allows the listener to hear music that slowly unfolds in almost infinite non-repeating combinations of sound.^[68] In 1991, Eno cancelled the release of My Squelchy Life, his first song-based album since Before and After Science, feeling it did not represent the "cutting edge" of his work. It was eventually released as part of box set reissue in 2014; Pitchfork called it "Eno's most enjoyable solo album of the '90s by a wide margin".^[69]

Eno and Lanois produced U2's seventh album, Achtung Baby (1991).^[70] Eno took on an assisting role, working with U2 for a week at a time to review their songs before leaving for a month or two.^[71][72] Eno said his role was "to come in and erase anything that sounded too much like U2".^[73] Eno stripped away overdubbing he considered excessive, which U2 believed "saved the album".^[74] Eno and Lanois used lateral thinking and a philosophical approach popularised by Eno's Oblique Strategies.^[75] Achtung Baby has been acclaimed as one of the greatest albums.^{[76][77][78][79]} It sold more than 18 million copies.^[80]

In 1992, Eno released Nerve Net, comprising a mixture of instrumental and vocal tracks, and The Shutov Assembly, comprising electronic sketches for future orchestral works. In 1993, he released Neroli, comprising a single hour-long ambient composition.^[69] Eno and his assistant Mark "Flood" Ellis produced U2's eighth album, Zooropa (1993).^[81] As with the Achtung Baby sessions, Eno worked two-week shifts. U2 often gave him in-progress songs to adjust and add his own personality.^[82]

"The Microsoft Sound"

Startup sound for Windows 95, composed by Eno

---

Problems playing this file? See media help.

In 1994, the Microsoft designers Mark Malamud and Erik Gavriluk commissioned Eno to compose startup music for the Windows 95 operating system.^[83] According to Eno, Microsoft requested a composition that was "inspiring, universal ... optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional" but which was only a few seconds long, a concept he found "funny and amazing". At the time, he was finding it difficult to complete music and appreciated the challenge of a specific problem.^[84] The result was the "The Microsoft Sound".^[84] Eno used a Macintosh to create the sound as he did not like PCs.^[85] Afterwards, Eno was creatively unblocked and found that full-length compositions seemed "like oceans of time".^[84] In 2025, the Microsoft Sound was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".^[86]

Eno produced the James albums Laid (1993) and Wah Wah (1994). Laid was a critical and commercial success in the UK and the US, while Wah Wah received mixed reviews.^[87] In 1995, Eno and U2 released the album Original Soundtracks 1, featuring the tenor Luciano Pavarotti.^[88] Due to Eno's participation and the experimental nature, the group released it under the name Passengers.^[89] It received mixed reviews and sold fewer copies than U2 standards,^[90] but the single "Miss Sarajevo" reached number 6 in the UK singles chart.^[91] In 1995, Eno provided one of several remixes of "Protection" by Massive Attack (originally from their Protection album) for release as a single.^{[citation needed]}

In 1996, Eno published A Year with Swollen Appendices, a diary covering his work during 1995.^[92] Eno scored the 1996 television series Neverwhere, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman.^[69] In 1997, Eno released The Drop, comprising several generative instrumentals made using piano, drum machines and samples of Eno's voice.^[69] Eno appeared as Father Brian Eno in "Going to America", the final episode of the television sitcom Father Ted, broadcast on 1 May 1998 on Channel 4.^[93]

2000s

Eno and Lanois produced U2's tenth album, All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000).^[94] U2 had wanted to write new material before beginning recording, but Eno convinced them to write quickly in the studio.^[95] In 2004, Fripp and Eno released their third album, The Equatorial Stars.^[96] Eno contributed to Tékitoi (2004) and Zoom (2013) by the French-Algerian Raï singer Rachid Taha.^[97][98] In June 2005, Eno released his 13th album, Another Day on Earth, comprising mostly electronic pop songs.^[99]

Eno's music was featured in the film adaption of Irvine Welsh's collection Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance (2007). He also played keyboards on Voila (2007) by Belinda Carlisle. Eno contributed "Grafton Street", to Dido's third album, Safe Trip Home, released in November 2008.^[100]

A generative art installation by Eno, 77 Million Paintings, debuted in Tokyo in 2006^[101] and made its North American premiere in San Francisco in 2007.^[102] Eno developed software to overlap images randomly, creating constantly moving patterns.^[102] 77 Million Paintings was projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House in June 2009.^[103] Eno created a procedural soundtrack for the video game Spore (2008), which changes in response to player actions.^[104] In 2008, Eno and the software designer Peter Chilvers released Bloom, an iOS app for creating generative music.^[105] It was followed in 2012 by another app, Scape.^[106]

Eno co-produced the fourth studio album by Coldplay, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, released in 2008.^[107] It was the world's highest-selling album that year, at nine million copies.^[108] Eno also contributed to Coldplay's fifth album, Mylo Xyloto, released in 2011.^[108] Eno contributed to the 2008 Grace Jones album Hurricane.^[109] Eno, Lanois and Steve Lillywhite produced the 12th studio album by U2, No Line on the Horizon, released in February 2009.^[110]

In 2008, Eno and Byrne released their second album together, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.^[111] Eno and Byrne described it as "electronic gospel", and Pitchfork said it was "nothing whatsoever" like their previous album, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.^[111] In June 2009, Eno curated the Luminous Festival at Sydney Opera House, culminating in his first live appearance in many years. "Pure Scenius" consisted of three live improvised performances on the same day, featuring Eno, Australian improvisation trio the Necks, Karl Hyde from Underworld, electronic artist Jon Hopkins and guitarist Leo Abrahams.^{[citation needed]} Eno scored Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Lovely Bones, released in December 2009.^[112] With Chris Martin of Coldplay, Eno wrote "Lukas" on the 2009 album Come to Life by Natalie Imbruglia.^[113]

2010s

Eno signed to Warp Records in 2010.^[114] In November, he, Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams released the album Small Craft on a Milk Sea.^[115] The album included five compositions ^[116] that were adaptions of those tracks that Eno wrote for The Lovely Bones.^[117] On 4 July 2011, Eno and the poet Rick Holland released the album Drums Between the Bells.^[118] In November 2012, Eno released Lux, a 76-minute composition in four sections, through Warp.^[119] Eno co-produced Lifelines, an album of covers by Andrea Corr (2011).^[120]

Eno sang on, co-wrote, and co-produced "Heavy Seas of Love" from the debut solo album by Damon Albarn, Everyday Robots (2014).^[121] In May 2014, Eno and Karl Hyde of Underworld released Someday World, featuring musicians including Will Champion of Coldplay, Andy Mackay of Roxy Music and Fred Again.^[122] A second album with Hyde, High Life, was released in June.^[123] Eno contributed music to the "Otherworlds" exhibition of planetary photography by Michael Benson, which in the London Natural History Museum in 2016.^[124] In April, Eno released the album The Ship on Warp.^[125] It features the actor Peter Serafinowicz providing spoken word, and a cover of the Velvet Underground song "I'm Set Free". Pitchfork described it as a balance of "pure ambiance and vocal-driven pop".^[125] Eno co-produced and contributed to the album Love Without Violins by the Gift, released on 30 September 2016.^[126] In 2016, Anthony Kiedis, the singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, said Eno had declined eight requests to produce them.^[127]

Eno released Reflection, an album of ambient generative music, on Warp on 1 January 2017.^[128] It was nominated for the 2017 Grammy Award for Best New Age Album.^[129] Eno also released an album with Tom Rogerson, Finding Shore (2017), through Dead Oceans.^[130] In April 2018, Eno released "The Weight of History" / "Only Once Away My Son", a double A-side with Kevin Shields, for Record Store Day.^[131] He also released Music for Installations, a compilation of his ambient and generative music created for art installations and exhibitions.^[132] In 2019, Eno participated in DAU, an immersive art and cultural installation in Paris by the Russian film director Ilya Khrzhanovsky evoking life under Soviet rule. Eno contributed six ambient compositions.^[133] In 2019, Eno was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music.^[134]

2020s

In March 2020, Eno and his brother, Roger Eno, released the album Mixing Colours.^[135] Eno provided original music for Ben Lawrence's 2021 documentary Ithaka about John Shipton's battle to save his son, Julian Assange.^[136] In October 2022, he released the album ForeverAndEverNoMore, comprising songs rather than ambient music.^[137] Eno met Fred Gibson, also known as Fred Again, at a singing group organised by Eno and became his mentor. They released an album, Secret Life, in May 2023.^[138] The song "Enough" was nominated for the Ivor Novello Award for best contemporary song on 23 May 2024.^[139]

In March 2025, Eno released an album, Aurum, exclusive to Apple Music.^[140] In 2025, he released the albums Luminal, Lateral and Liminal with Beatie Wolfe on Verve Records.^[141][142] That year, Faber & Faber published a book by Eno and Bette Adriaanse, What Art Does, that examines the role of art in society and its impact on human experience.^[143] Eno contributed to the 2026 EP Easter Lily by U2.^[144]

Generative music

Eno designs generative music systems, processes by which music emerges randomly through conditions created by the composer. He became interested in such processes in the 1960s after hearing composers such as Terry Riley, and began experimenting with tape loops.^[106] Eno said he found it exciting to almost "lose control" of the music: "You'd then feed inputs into it, and it would reconfigure it and make something beyond what you had predicted." Eno albums including Discreet Music (1975) and Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1979) were early products of generative music systems.^[106]

Influences

Eno's interest in art was sparked by a tiny reproduction of a canvas by Piet Mondrian he received when he was 10. Eno said his music is minimalistic, similarly to Mondrian's work.^[159] The Who and the Velvet Underground were other early influences, as Eno felt they successfully combined music and art.^[41] Early in his career, Eno was interested in both pop music, which he said produces "incredible sounds with great musicians who really feel what they play", and the experimental music of Steve Reich, Cornelius Cardew, John Cage and Gavin Bryars. However, he disliked how experimental composers such as Reich performed and recorded music, which he described as "stiffly played and badly recorded". Eno sought to combine experimental music processes with the "results-oriented" world of pop.^[41] In 1974, Eno said he strove for a meeting between avant-garde music, which is "fiercely intellectual, fiercely anti-physical", and rock music, which is "fiercely physical and fiercely anti-intellectual".^[157]

Equipment

In the 1970s, Eno's primary instrument was the tape recorder; he once owned 31 of them.^[28] Eno said he enjoyed discovering how technology could be put to purposes beyond the designer's intention; he cited distortion as an example.^[140] He enjoys working with complex equipment, as this creates a complex and rich sound that suggests a mood.^[153] Eno felt that whereas traditional instruments, such as pianos, are tied to cultural convention and musical history, he found newer instruments such as synthesisers freeing: "You're designing a new instrument ... It's a constantly unfinished instrument. You finish it when you tweak it, and play around with it, and decide how to use it. You can combine a number of cultural references into one new thing."^[106] He did not note down his synthesiser settings for fear of falling into habits.^[28]

In the 1980s, Eno was one of the few musicians who learned to program the Yamaha DX7 synthesiser in depth, and used it to create ambient music on his 1983 album Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks.^[160] He shared instructions for recreating his patches in a 1987 issue of Keyboard,^[161] and used the DX7 on records he produced by U2 and Coldplay.^[160] Eno was an early adopter of the Kaoss Pad, an audio effects unit that uses a touchscreen. He described it as "a way of taking sounds into the domain of muscular control" as opposed to working with computers.^[162]

Israel

In 2006, Eno was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter calling for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions.^[212] In January 2009, he spoke out against Israel's military action on the Gaza Strip by writing an opinion for CounterPunch and participating in a large-scale protest in London.^[213][214] In 2014, Eno again protested publicly against what he called a "one-sided exercise in ethnic cleansing" and a "war [with] no moral justification", in reference to the 2014 military operation of Israel into Gaza.^[215] He was also a co-signatory, along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker and others, to a letter published in The Guardian that labelled the conflict an "inhumane and illegal act of military aggression" and called for "a comprehensive and legally binding military embargo on Israel, similar to that imposed on South Africa during apartheid."^[216]

In April 2021, Eno was a participant in the "Live for Gaza", online concert which was held in April. 2021 Artists from Gaza included Gaza's first rock group Osprey V, Wafaa Alnjeili, and Badeel Band.^[217][218] In October 2023, Eno signed an open letter of artists for ceasefire during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.^[219] In November 2023, he signed an open letter calling for a ceasefire and an end to Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.^[220] In May 2025, Eno accused Microsoft of complicity in Israeli war crimes in the Gaza war for providing Israel with AI and cloud services. Eno promised to donate his original fee for the Windows 95 start-up chime to the victims in Gaza.^[221]

In September 2025, Eno organised and performed at the Together for Palestine benefit concert at Wembley Arena in London. The event raised over $2.0 million for Palestinian charities.^[222] In September 2025, he signed an open pledge with Film Workers for Palestine, pledging not to work with Israeli film institutions "that are implicated in [the] genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people".^[223]