brian eno - the ship

Earlier this year Brian Eno released his latest album, called The Ship. 

I revisited this album recently after initial plays left me rather underwhelmed, and I'm still unsure of this record. 

The title track is 21 minutes of ambient burbles and bleeps and bloops which is rather good, but then Eno kind of speak sings some stuff over the middle part using that sort of electronic effect on his voice that he’s so fond of, but which I find gets a bit tiresome after a while. And the vocal part is rather repetitive, which doesn’t help matters. Much of The Drums Between The Bells improved after a few listens, and this is like a 21 minute track from that record but with Eno’s voice. I thought it would grow on me, but it didn't and still hasn't.

The rest of the album is better though – I was very impressed with “Fickle Sun” straight away - it is ambient and noisy all at the same time. It’s odd, but entertainingly so. “Fickle Sun” has some surprising horns, some weird chanting sort of singing near the end with strings which is all a bit Tilt-era Scott Walkerish, and Eno’s vocals on the earlier part of the piece are terrific, none of the electronic trickery you get on “The Ship” – he’s also singing in a very deep voice which works really well. The vocal melody comes across as a sort of weird folk song, as if it’s really old somehow, though I don’t think it is.. “Fickle Sun II” is good too – gentle piano underpinning Peter Serafinowicz reciting some sort of baffling poetry.

Then we get Eno’s version of “I’m Set Free”, the VU song. And frankly it’s worth the price of the album just for this song. I love it. A fairly faithful rendition, Eno in really fine voice, with some gorgeous strings replacing the emotional guitar solo of the original. The wonderfully named Nell Catchpole is responsible for those, as she has been on many other Eno records. I would really welcome an album of songs like this; how about an Eno sings VU Classics record?! He recorded a version of “White Light / White Heat” about ten years ago and then auctioned off the only copy of it, so only one person has ever heard it! 

Anyway, as with all recentish Eno albums it’s good, but apart from “I’m Set Free” it’s not (so far) outstanding in the way Eno records used to be. 

I’m still not convinced by the title piece. To me it’s overlong and doesn’t really justify it’s 21 minutes length. Half the length would have done it I think.

But “I’m Set Free” is just brilliant! Really, really brilliant.