I occasionally meet people and they say, ‘Oh, I was born to Discreet Music’… They always have very weird eyes, those people.
BRIAN ENOLyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven’t been made easier technically.
More Brian Eno Quotes
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In terms of what has been happening recently, there have been, I think, some really interesting new instruments that have come out that sort of show me the direction of the future. Korg has introduced the – they’ve had a whole series now of these things called Kaoss Pads.
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Something I’ve realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if we’re smart about it.
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It infuriates me that stuff from the Internet routinely doesn’t include all the credits. Because as soon as I listen to something, if I like it, I want to know, “Who’s the bass player?” “Who did that?” “Who’s the engineer on this?
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People always focus on people like me who use synthesizers, right, which are explicitly electronic and therefore obvious.
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Human development thus far has been fueled and guided by the feeling that things could be, and are probably going to be, better.
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Set up a situation that presents you with something slightly beyond your reach.
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Everybody is entertained to death.
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What I would really like to do, if I could have a sort of kingship for a short time and organize the group of my dreams.
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I’m very good with technology, I always have been, and with machines in general. They seem not threatening like other people find them, but a source of fun and amusement.
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The vinyl commands a certain kind of reverence because it’s a big object and quite fragile so you handle it rather carefully, and it’s expensive so you pay attention to how it’s looked after.
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The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten.
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Emotion creates reality, reality demands action.
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The problem with computers is that there is not enough Africa in them.
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I think we’re about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.
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I’m struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity.
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I think the other thing that’s important is getting to a place, which very, very rarely happens with improvising groups, where somebody can decide not to play for a while. You watch any group of musicians improvising together and they nearly all play nearly all the time.
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Let’s do something else.”And you always think “Oh my God I’ve never done anything at all like that before.” But, of course, in retrospect, and to an outsider, they’ll say, “Oh, yeah that’s typical Eno.
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One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.
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Once you’ve grown to accept something and it becomes part of the system you’ve inherited, you don’t even notice it any longer.
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Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.
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People in the arts often want to aim for the biggest, most obvious target, and hit it smack in the bull’s eye.
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What matters in modern music is not the part you can write down, the words and the tune, but the rest – the texture, the atmosphere, the references and associations.
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The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.
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I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.
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The reason I don’t tour is that I don’t know how to front a band. What would I do? I can’t really play anything well enough to deal with that situation.
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My lyrics are generated by various peculiar processes. Very random and similar to automatic writing.
BRIAN ENO