On first listen, "Lateral" is a return to the roots: those of "Thursday Afternoon" and the other long ambient pieces accompanying Brian Eno's installations. Eight tracks, each around eight minutes long, to be listened to like a long, continuous suite, without any break. Listened to in shuffle mode, the album lends itself to hours of variations in the same sonic and immersive continuum.
The eight tracks are named “Big Empty Country I, II, III, IV etc.”, like so many movements of the same work, a nod perhaps to the musical genre of the album “Luminal”, which I'll comment on in another post, but also, perhaps, a refusal of any referential instructions, an ironic evocation of the ambient genre, furnishing music for empty rooms, or a sonic tabula rasa that the listener is invited to furnish and decorate as he or she pleases, like a blank screen on which to project inner images. ..
The album title “Lateral” is a kind of riddle, when you look at the cover: two luminous discs integrated into a square (squaring the circle?)...
The minimalist choice of a same sound color, a same instrumental palette throughout the album, enriched by infinite microvariations, also takes us back to the roots of Eno's music and of the ambient genre. Ethereal pads, diaphanous piano outlining possible melodic lines, slow waves of sound surging in loops reminiscent of the Revox magnetic tape experiments of the past...
This is a slow, immersive music, with filtered sounds, that unfolds like a long, luminous, shimmering ribbon, lending itself to a floating, enveloping listening experience. Harmonic layers with a thousand reflections, punctuated by suspended notes...
We are now in a times of profusion of tools for virtual studios, of ad nauseam declensions of sample libraries, and the algorithmic tyranny of playlists favors muzak by the mile when it isn't created by an AI that produces the lowest common denominator of musicality.
Brian Eno, remaining true to his identity and artistic vision, once again stands outside fashion, that is, outside time, with an ambient work that combines simplicity and sophistication, minimalism and harmonic architecture...
Once again, a great lesson in ambient composition, and, for me at least, the promise of a never ending musical pleasure...
