Brian Eno - Film Music: 1976 - 2020

Brian Eno has given fans Film Music 1976 – 2020 – his first ever collection of music from his film and television soundtrack oeuvre. The hand-picked compilation spans five decades, features classic Eno compositions and includes some lesser-known gems and seven previously unreleased tracks.

Eno’s long-standing affair with film goes all the way back to 1970 with his soundtrack to Malcolm Le Grice’s short experimental film ‘Berlin Horse’. In 1976 he followed this with ‘Sebastiane’ and a long forgotten Greek b-horror film, ‘Land Of The Minotaur’ aka ‘The Devil’s Men’. This led to an unstoppable momentum largely initiated by the release of his 1978 studio album, ‘Music For Films’. Early classic Eno film moments include ‘Prophecy Theme’ from David Lynch’s ‘Dune’, ‘From The Beginning’ from Dario Argento’s ‘Opera’, ‘Force Marker’ and ‘Late Evening In Jersey’ from Michael Mann’s ‘Heat’, ‘Under’ from Ralph Bakshi’s ‘Cool World’ and his moving cover of William Bell’s soul classic, ‘You Don’t Miss Your Water’, in Jonathan Demme’s ‘Married to The Mob’.

‘Music For Films’ was a loose compilation of material recorded between 1975 ~ 1978. It was intended as a conceptual soundtrack for imaginary films and only the closing track, ‘Final Sunset’ was written for an actual film. It proved to be a fruitful project with nearly every piece on the album going on to be used in future films, including several of Derek Jarman’s, the remake of Jean-Luc Goddard’s ‘Breathless’, John Woo’s ‘A Better Tomorrow’, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll High School’ and Todd Hayes’ ‘Safe’.

Eno again explored this approach with U2 as ‘Passengers’ on their collaboration album, ‘Original Soundtracks 1’. Four of the tracks from the album were used in films prior to release: ‘Beach Sequence’ and ‘Your Blue Room’ in Michelangelo Antonioni’s ‘Beyond the Clouds’, ‘Miss Sarajevo’ in an eponymous documentary about a beauty pageant held in the midst of besieged ‘93 Sarajevo, and ‘One Minute Warning’ in Mamoru Oshii’s Japanese animation classic, ‘Ghost in the Shell’. Another track, ‘Always Forever Now’ later appeared in ‘Heat’.

In the mid-seventies Eno began a rich and rewarding collaboration with British film maker, Derek Jarman, who initially commissioned him to record ‘Final Sunset’ for the closing scene to his first feature film, ‘Sebastiane’. The collaboration continued all the way through until Jarman’s untimely death in 1994. Including the several tracks in ‘Sebastiane’, this collaboration resulted in Eno’s music in four of Jarman’s films, including ‘Still Water’ and ‘Dover Beach’ in ‘Jubilee’, ‘Blue’ and the entire score of the autobiographical ‘Glitterbug’ – his final film.

Heavyweight double vinyl produced by Opal Music in 2020. Gatefold sleeve. Includes download card.