The prestigious producer’s 30^th solo album, ‘Aurum’ has been released exclusively to Apple Music, due to their Spatial Audio feature, which delivers an immersive, surround-sound experience for the listener where it feels like the music is coming from all around you. It will not be available through Spotify and other streaming platforms. No singles were released prior to the album.

As well as the record, Apple Music have dropped a new interview between Eno and Zane Lowe. In the 43-minute video, the two conversed about ‘Aurum’, and AI technology.

Eno shared his mixed feelings on the topic of AI: “The biggest problem for me about AI is not intrinsic to AI. It’s to do with the fact that it’s owned by the same few people, and I have less and less interest in what those people think, and more and more criticisms of what the effect of their work has been.”

Eno isn’t the first musician in recent years to have gripes with AI technology. Artists like Kate Bush, Paul McCartney and Thom Yorke have all expressed concerns over how it could affect the music industry.

But the godfather of ambient music also spoke about the creative possibilities that could come with the new technology: “Talking about AI itself, I’ve always been happy to welcome new technologies and to see what you could do with them that nobody else thought of doing with them, and what things they could do, other than those that they were designed for, because with all music technology, it’s always very interesting that stuff is designed for one reason, and then people start to find new things they could do that are completely beyond what the designer was thinking about.”

“Distortion is a good example. Distortion is, in a way, the sound of popular music, a lot of the things that we find uniquely exciting to do with equipment kind of going wrong. That’s quite a bizarre thought, isn’t it? That you design equipment to do this. Then, you start using it to do something else, which it doesn’t do very well, and you get to like the sound of the not very wellness.”

Brian Eno is widely credited with popularizing the term and genre of “ambient music”. Previously a member of British band Roxy Music, in the late 70’s he released “Ambient 1: Music for Airports”, a seminal work which set the tone for the genre. He defined it as music that could be “as ignorable as it is interesting”.

He’s had a prolific career, releasing over 40 albums of his own as well as collaborations with artists like Robert Fripp, Harold Budd and more recently Fred Again – their collaborative album ‘Secret Life’ gained positive reviews, with Triple J writing: “It seemed like a big call for Four Tet to say Secret Life is the most beautiful album of the year, but it really will be hard to beat.”

‘Aurum’ is available to listen via Apple Music here.

it is the most beautiful album of 2023

— Four Tet (@FourTet) May 2, 2023

The duo kept the LP under wraps until yesterday (3^rd May) when electronic musician Four Tet comically revealed on Instagram with a faraway image of a post-it note that the album, Secret Life, would be released on his label Text Records. According to Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet) “it is the most beautiful album of 2023”. The album will be available on physical release as CDs and vinyl as Fred showcased on his Instagram.

The musicians revealed on social media that “for the last couple of weeks” a radio station called secretlife.fm has been playing “different versions” of the album at 10 pm BST each evening. The 11-track final and main version of the ambient album debuted on NTS Radio last night (3^rd May).

Fred Again.. took to Instagram to express his excitement over the project and his love for Eno writing: “I absolutely love Brian. So much. Ive been so lucky to have him as my friend and mentor since I was 16. And the older I get the more I appreciate how rare and wonderful his mind is.” He continued to say: “Making this was I think the most therapeutic experience ive had in music. ill explain a bit more why when I understand it a bit better I think?”.

In an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Eno reciprocated Fred’s praises saying, “I think of Fred as my mentor as well in that I Iearned so much about contemporary music from watching him work. When I first worked with Fred I could see he was brilliant. It was very clear he’s a very sensitive and good artist. But I didn’t really understand what he was doing. It took me quite a while to think, ‘Oh my gosh, this is really a new idea about how you can make music.’”

Watch the full interview below:

Both artists dropped records in October last year, Fred Again.. releasing the future garage album Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9 2022) and Brian Eno releasing the ambient pop album FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE.

Fred Again.., Four Tet, and Skrillex teamed up to close out Coachella weekend two last month replacing Frank Ocean as headliners. Ocean cancelled his performance after sustaining injuries in his left leg.

The musician Tom Relleen, one half of Tomaga and a member of The Oscillation, Autotelia and more, has sadly diedhttps://t.co/kRJKGtqQrc pic.twitter.com/w04UpJBZSt

— The Quietus (@theQuietus) August 25, 2020

Relleen’s musical style is hard to describe. Comparisons to other ambient instrumentalists like Aphex Twin or Rothko can only go so far. His music with Tomaga ranges from relaxed tracks like Bluest that sounds like wind-chimes in the wind to more austere and disturbing ones like Senza. The latter could easily feature on a horror movie soundtrack, with the combination of a ticking clock and the abrasive scratching of a stringed instrument evoking a sense of impending doom.

His most recent project Autotelia, a collaboration with Demian Castellanos of The Oscillation, is more minimal and consistent in its style. Their first album, simply titled I, was released in July. It is an ambient five-track beauty that puts listeners in a trance using echoes and electronic sounds that ironically sound organic. 

The word Autotelia was coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalvi to describe people whose life purpose is internal rather than external. He argued that such people are not interested in ‘comfort, money, power or fame‘ but instead are driven simply by ‘curiosity‘.

our debut album will be release on 24th July by @RocketRecording .. … …. https://t.co/ydKeal4u3G — Autotelia (@Autoteliamusic) July 20, 2020

This is a fitting name for a band whose music shows not only a disregard for the conventions of popular genres but also pushes sonic boundaries in such an inquisitive way. This is true of Relleen’s entire body of work. Since he started releasing music back in 2007 as part of The Oscillation, Relleen has experimented with unusual combinations of sound and syncopated rhythm.

His inquisitive nature will be remembered by his friends and fans. Many took to Twitter to share their sorrow at his passing, calling him a ‘generous‘ and ‘kind‘ man.Musical collaborator Castellanos called him a ‘beautiful, inspiring friend who helped, encouraged and motivated many people‘. Marie-Peirre Bonniol of the Julie Tippex agency said his musical endeavours ‘not only shaped the London scene but also the European one‘, continuing that he did much work ‘connecting people and organising collaborations‘. His was an unselfish and prolific career, that will not be soon forgotten.