Discreet Music is quite a lengthy CD. The actual piece Discreet Music is over half an hour long and evokes Eno's wonderful Music for Airports.
Also included are three related pieces and this, Fullness of Wind, is the first of three variations on the Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel. It's the best of the three - and well worth a bang.
Eno fragments, overlays and slows different parts of the original score to create a beautiful ambient work. Kinda Steve Reich meets Godspeed you Black Emperor (without the guitars).
Actually, in this case it happens to be the middle of the ocean. Just drifting any direction. No land in sight, nothing else on the water, not even any clouds. No distractions. Just you, the boat, and the water.
Oh, and Julie -- she's there -- with her open blouse, gazing up into the empty sky.
What's so powerful about Eno's "Julie With..." (and this is perhaps representative of his entire career) is that he gives you an experience in perfect detail, as if reading a book.
Even if you discount the lyrics, which, although not exactly Shakespearian, are clear and unambiguous, there is no escaping the image that Eno is presenting.
Casting aside any overanalysis, what we're left with is an outstanding bit of relaxing, but emotionally evocative chillout music. Completely beatles, the instrumentation is typical Eno: pad synthesizers, minimoog and guitar with heavy chorus. Not something you'd throw on at an afterparty, but great for a sunset in solitude.
from Before And After Science (EG Records/Polydor Polydor Deluxe 2302 071), available on CD
Brian Eno on guitar, percussion, organs and piano and John Cale on viola. When you put geniuses like these two together, something brilliant is bound to happen. In this case, it's this song. This one gets me every time.
from Another Green World
28 Feb 02 ·G400 Custom: Talking of Eno and Cale, 'Wrong Way Up', the LP they released together in 1990, is intermittently excellent. Both of them indulge their poppier side, particularly on 'Lay My Love'.