#409: Brian Eno - Before and After Science (1977)

Zack: I have a pretty special attachment to Eno’s Here Comes the Warm Jets because I listened to it the day I moved into my first grown-up apartment in North Philly. We hadn’t installed internet yet, so I didn’t have much to do besides listen to albums for the blog (wow, times were different) and this one just so happened to be the first one up. As soon as my mom left – she and I moved all of my worldly possessions including a bed, desk, and dresser up 3 flights of very narrow and twisty stairs – I set my old laptop up on the dresser and got to work. I’ve relistened to that album maybe 6 or 7 times since then, always just to feel nostalgic for when my major life stresses were finding a job and getting someone to buy me alcohol rather than health insurance and that moment of prayer between when you hit run on your do file and when you see the results. It’s a pretty good album. Outside of my normal wheelhouse, but something that I find it quite enjoyable every once in a while. I can’t imagine that I’ll develop a sentimental attachment to Before and After Science that will rival that, but it may be the better album anyway. I’ll admit, the first handful of tracks really threw me for a loop. I was not into them at all. But after that, the album settled into a nice groove and I really appreciated the vibe it was putting out. I guess I really prefer things after science. Those songs were sort of cold and distant, but sort of soothing. There was something…inevitable to the music. I guess I would describe it as sort of anti-jazz. All the life and vibrancy that makes jazz so great was absent, but it sort of became its own thing. I know that doesn’t make it sound too inviting, but I don’t really know how to explain it any better than that.

Favorite Tracks: Julie With…; King’s Lead Hat; Energy Fools the Magician

Emily: The title of this album evokes a grand scope, envisioning a world changed by the steady drumbeat of scientific progress and evolution. What did the world sound like before science, anyway? Primordial ooze? Darkness and chanted hymns? And what about after science? Does the light come in? What would that light sound like? I'm not sure if Eno answers these questions on Before and After Science (or even intended to answer them), but the album provides a pensive soundtrack by which to contemplate them. Eno takes rock music and twists and bends it around, experimenting with the avant-garde and ambient sounds that would come to define his later work. The result, like so much of Eno's work we've encountered, is at once familiar and yet totally unique.

Favorite Tracks: King's Lead Hat; Julie With...; Here He Comes