People who have followed this series from the beginning on might be a little surprised by my 1982 choice. It is an album which didn’t feature in the poll. When creating the poll I didn’t think of On Land as I hadn’t seriously listened to it. Phil from one faint deluded smile mentioned it in the comments and after having realised that none of the ten records in the poll was exciting enough to be my album of the year I started relistening to On Land. When reading the liner notes with the music on the speakers it suddenly clicked. I was drawn in slowly like into a far away maelstrom in a sea which I had taken erroneously for totally calm. I have never cared a lot about Eno’s minmal and ambient music as put forward before on Discreet Music and Music for Airports. The kind of stuff to which Satie’s term furniture music fits quite well. It does not ask to be listened to. It flows along without any highs and lows. If it creates an atmosphere it is an atmosphere of void. Music with the aim of going nowhere, just turning around itself endlessly. Music which does not reward the listener.

On Land is different. It uses natural sounds to which the listener can cling to. They evoke memories. They tell stories of places. Brian Eno just forms those found sounds and weaves an electronic wrapping around them. He creates something highly unique and seamless by fusing the organic with technology. Eno recorded this album in New York. Like the city it is a melting pot.

A mysterious record which gives the listener the freedom to associate whatever his phantasy is able to come up with when exposed to this earth music. Exactly in between Tangerine Dream’s cosmic star track Zeit and Peter Gabriel’s tribal Passion soundtrack. In the past couple of years I got more and more attracted to simple environmental sounds like the waves hitting the coast (Jack Kerouac wrote a long poem on the Pacific ocean at Big Sur). Or wind chimes. There is a place near Big Sur where they have thousands of them which play a magnificent natural symphony when it is windy. Last summer in Norway we cycled to the end of an island where there were hundreds of screaming sea-gulls flying around. It was like the end of the world. You could forget about humanity when closing the eyes and taking in those rough bird screams.

Some track by track impressions:

1 Lizard Point
Enormous insects buzz around.

2 The Lost Day
Menacing sounds in the background. Like the rumbling of a far away thunder. Which does not come closer but stays there for the whole nine minutes of the track. Metal pieces hitting each other in the wind. Is there a boat passing by? A spooky atmosphere. Accentuated by the low symphonic soaring synthesizer sounds which give the piece an even more apocalyptic flair.

3 Tal Coat
It is dark. I am undergound in a cave or something. A humid place. Snakes are all around. They make these hellish sounds with their tongues. They move towards me.

4 Shadow
A hot summer evening in the steppe. Maybe in Australia. Crickets chirping. Someone hums. A warm enveloping guitar sound.

5 Lantern Marsh
It is cloudy. The sky is low. Nothing is happening.

6 Unfamiliar Wind (Leeks Hills)
Birds flying around making noises. Sheep. Where are the frogs? A short animal sound symphony.

7 A Clearing
More animal sounds. In the water.

8 Dunwich Beach, Autumn, 1960
Piano echoes. Like played in the water. We are floating.

Some quotes from Eno and another contributor on the album:

On the origin of the music from the liner notes:

On the instrumentation and the sampled sounds (liner notes):

On the ideas behind and reverb:

Bill Laswell who plays bass on Lizard Point on the featured sounds:

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XVII was this post.

... link