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Obscure Records was a U.K. record label which existed from 1975 to 1978. It was created and curated by Brian Eno. Ten albums were issued in the series. Most have detailed liner notes on their back covers, analyzing the compositions and providing a biography of the composer, in a format typical of classical music albums, and much of the material can be regarded as 20th-century classical music. The label provided a venue for experimental music.
Catalog | Year | Artist(s) | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Obscure no.1 | 1975 | Gavin Bryars | The Sinking of the Titanic | Release also contains Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, which includes Derek Bailey on guitar and Michael Nyman on organ. |
Obscure no.2 | 1975 | Christopher Hobbs, John Adams, Gavin Bryars | Ensemble Pieces | |
Obscure no.3 | 1975 | Brian Eno | Discreet Music | Title track (side one) utilizes the tape loop system previously used by Fripp & Eno in (No Pussyfooting) and soon to be known as Frippertronics |
Obscure no.4 | 1975 | David Toop, Max Eastley | New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments | David Toop's name appears first on the cover, but his tracks occupy side two. Toop's tracks are incorrectly listed in backward order on both cover and label of Island and Polydor editions. The Virgin CD reissue retains the cover and label order, but adjusts the running order of the tracks on the disc itself to match |
Obscure no.5 | 1976 | Jan Steele, John Cage | Voices and Instruments | Features Robert Wyatt singing two tracks |
Obscure no.6 | 1976 | Michael Nyman | Decay Music | |
Obscure no.7 | 1976 | Members of the Penguin Café Orchestra | Music from the Penguin Café | Lists Simon Jeffes as the artist on the label only, on Island and Polydor editions |
Obscure OBS-8 | 1978 | John White, Gavin Bryars | Machine Music | |
Obscure OBS-9 | 1978 | an opera by Tom Phillips, music by Gavin Bryars, libretto by Fred Orton | Irma | |
Obscure OBS-10 | 1978 | Harold Budd | The Pavilion of Dreams |
The first seven albums were issued on the Obscure label in 1975 and 1976, manufactured and distributed in the UK by Island Records whose name appeared at the bottom of the label. These have a catalogue number expressed as "Obscure no. 1" through 7 on the covers, or "OBSCURE-1" etc. on the labels. All albums use the original, mostly black, cover art.
Roxy Music were an English rock band that was formed in 1970 by Bryan Ferry—who became the band's lead singer and main songwriter—and bass guitarist Graham Simpson. Alongside Ferry, the other longtime members were Phil Manzanera (guitar), Andy Mackay, and Paul Thompson. Other members included Brian Eno, Eddie Jobson, and John Gustafson (bass). Although the band took a break from group activities in 1976 and again in 1983, they reunited for a concert tour in 2001, and toured together intermittently over the next few years. Ferry frequently enlisted band members as session musicians for his solo releases.
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. A form of instrumental music, it may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody. It uses textural layers of sound which can reward both passive and active listening and encourage a sense of calm or contemplation. The genre is said to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual", or "unobtrusive" quality. Nature soundscapes may be included, and the sounds of acoustic instruments such as the piano, strings and flute may be emulated through a synthesizer.
Ambient 1: Music for Airports is the sixth studio album by English musician Brian Eno, released in 1978 by Polydor Records. The album consists of four compositions created by layering tape loops of differing lengths, and was designed to be continuously looped as a sound installation, with the intent of defusing the tense, anxious atmosphere of an airport terminal.
Remain in Light is the fourth studio album by American rock band Talking Heads, released on October 8, 1980 by Sire Records. It was recorded at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas and Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia between July and August 1980 and produced by longtime collaborator Brian Eno. Following the release of their previous album Fear of Music in 1979, the quartet and Eno sought to dispel notions of the band as a mere vehicle for frontman and songwriter David Byrne. Drawing on the influence of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, the band experimented with African polyrhythms, funk, and electronics, recording instrumental tracks as a series of looping grooves. The sessions incorporated a variety of side musicians, including guitarist Adrian Belew, singer Nona Hendryx, and trumpet player Jon Hassell.
Discreet Music (1975) is the fourth studio album by the British musician Brian Eno, and the first released under his full name. The album is a minimalist work featuring synthesizer and tape delay. The A-side consists of one 30-minute piece, while the B-side features three variations on Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel, performed by the Cockpit Ensemble and conducted by Gavin Bryars.
Cluster & Eno is a collaborative album by German electronic music group Cluster and English ambient musician Brian Eno. The style of this album is a collection of gentle melodies: a mixture of Eno's ambient sensibilities and Cluster's avant-garde style.
Thursday Afternoon is the eleventh solo studio album by British ambient musician Brian Eno consisting of one 60-minute eponymous composition. It is the rearranged soundtrack to an 80-minute video production of the same title made in 1984.
The End... is the fourth studio album by German musician Nico. It was recorded in summer 1974 at Sound Techniques studio in London and produced by John Cale. It was released in November 1974, on record label Island.
Here Come the Warm Jets is the debut solo album by British musician Brian Eno, released on Island Records in January 1974. It was recorded and produced by Eno following his departure from the band Roxy Music, and blends glam and pop stylings with avant-garde approaches. The album features numerous guests, including three of Eno's former Roxy bandmates, drummer Simon King, bassist Bill MacCormick, guitarist/bassist Paul Rudolph and guitarist Robert Fripp and bassist John Wetton. Notable contributions were also made by guitarist Chris Spedding, bassist Busta Jones and gospel vocal group Sweetfeed. In developing the material with the various musicians, Eno devised unusual methods and instructions to obtain unexpected results.
Drone music, drone-based music, or simply drone, is a minimalist genre that emphasizes the use of sustained sounds, notes, or tone clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece. La Monte Young, one of its 1960s originators, defined it in 2000 as "the sustained tone branch of minimalism".
Cluster were a German musical duo consisting of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius, formed in 1971 and associated with West Germany's krautrock and kosmische music scenes. Born from the earlier Berlin-based group Kluster, they relocated in 1971 into the countryside village of Forst, Lower Saxony, where they built a studio and collaborated with musicians such as Conny Plank, Brian Eno, and Michael Rother; with the latter, they formed the influential side-project Harmonia. After first disbanding in 1981, Cluster reunited several times: from 1989 to 1997, and from 2007 to 2010.
For Your Pleasure is the second album by English rock band Roxy Music, released by Island Records in 1973. It was their last to feature synthesiser and sound specialist Brian Eno, who would later gain acclaim as a solo artist and producer.
Music from The Penguin Cafe is the first studio album by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It was recorded between 1974 and 1976, and released in 1976.
Guitar Solos is the debut solo album of English guitarist, composer, and improviser Fred Frith. It was recorded while Frith was still a member of the English experimental rock group Henry Cow and was released in the United Kingdom on LP record by Caroline Records in October 1974. The album comprises eight tracks of unaccompanied and improvised music played on prepared guitars by Frith without any overdubbing.
Decay Music is the 1976 debut album by Michael Nyman, released on Brian Eno's Obscure Records music label. The two works on the album, "1-100" and "Bell Set No. 1" (1974) are both built around the musical concept of decay. Both of these experiment with percussive, long decay musical forms. "1-100" is played at half the speed it was recorded. It was written for Peter Greenaway's film of the same title but rejected because it was too long. It was inspired by Frederic Rzewski's Les Moutons de Panurge, which Nyman often played with the Scratch Orchestra.
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno is an English musician, record producer, visual artist, and theorist best known for his work in ambient music and contributions to rock, pop and electronica. A self-described "non-musician", Eno has helped introduce unique conceptual approaches and recording techniques to contemporary music. He has been described as one of popular music's most influential and innovative figures.
(No Pussyfooting) is the debut studio album by the British duo Fripp & Eno, released in 1973. (No Pussyfooting) was the first of three major collaborations between the musicians, growing out of Brian Eno's early tape delay looping experiments and Robert Fripp's "Frippertronics" electric guitar technique.
The Sinking of the Titanic is a work by British minimalist composer Gavin Bryars. Inspired by the story that the band on the RMS Titanic continued to perform as the ship sank in April 1912, it recreates how the music performed by the band would reverberate through the water some time after they ceased performing. Composed between 1969 and 1972, the work is now considered one of the classics of British experimental music.
Bureau B is an independent record label, music publisher and booking agency from Hamburg, Germany, founded in 2005 by Gunther Buskies as a sister label to Tapete Records. The label releases varieties of electronic, free-spirited music, with the spectrum ranging from pop to avant-garde. The label has amassed an extensive catalogue of reissues and new productions, including classics from the genre of electronic music in the 1970s and early 1980s popularly classified as Krautrock, alongside new recordings by such formative artists as Faust, Kreidler, Roedelius, Tietchens, Moebius.
Experimental pop is pop music that cannot be categorized within traditional musical boundaries or which attempts to push elements of existing popular forms into new areas. It may incorporate experimental techniques such as musique concrète, aleatoric music, or eclecticism into pop contexts. Often, the compositional process involves the use of electronic production effects to manipulate sounds and arrangements, and the composer may draw the listener's attention specifically with both timbre and tonality, though not always simultaneously.