On his third solo album Brian Eno abducts the listener into a slower, a softer, a warmer, a better world. Fourteen miniatures are leading us to a magical place beyond space and time.

In January 1975 Brian Eno had had his road accident. He had been hit by a taxi and had to spent some time immobilised in hospital. This is when his brain took off and he probably created the most original music of his lifetime, a record oscillating between tuneful pop and floating ambient. Or floating pop and tuneful ambient.

After the lively avant pop of Here Come the Warm Jets which sounds like a Roxy Music record with Eno as the leader and the eccentric concept album Taking Tiger Mountain Eno changed direction. From fifth gear straight into reverse gear. This is also illustrated by his choice of musicians. Whereas on the frst two solo records basically the whole Roxy Music outfit minus Bryan Ferry was present, on Another Green World Roxy Music has left the building and several pieces are performed by different supergroups consisting of King Crimson's band leader Robert Fripp, Velvet Underground's ex-#2 John Cale, the Genesis drummer Phil Collins and Roxy Music's ex-#2, Mister Eno himself.

Another Green World comprises five songs and nine instrumentals. This ratio gets smoothed when you look at the playing times of the pieces: about 18 minutes with Eno singing and 23 minutes without his voice. But still the listener gets the feeling that the instrumental tracks are filling the gaps (in a perfect way) in between the songs. Eno's inoffensive, almost asexual, calm voice resonates for a long time. He sounds like an enlightened alien who has dropped from another star to show us that there is more to the world than we imagine.

In the first song, Sky Saw, Eno lays down his approach to lyrics:

There may be some meaning in them but it is unconscious. Eno uses the words to make the music sound better not to say something. Let's just believe him. As not listening to the lyrics does not take away the spell of the music.

I know my review should start now but I don't know any words which could do this album justice. Just listen to the first song with the great bass play by Percy Jones and Paul Rudolph and John Cale treating his viola badly near the end and buy the CD if you don't have it yet.

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

... link