''Another Day on Earth'' is the twenty-fourth solo studio album by

Brian Eno Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...

, released on 13 June 2005 in the UK and Europe through

Hannibal Records Hannibal Records was a British record label and one of the first to work with the World music genre. Hannibal was started by Joe Boyd in 1980. Boyd had produced records by artists such as Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band and Fairport ...

, and on 14 June 2005 in the US.

Overview

This is the first Eno album to chiefly contain vocals in more than two decades. Speaking of the album, Eno said, "''The first one I've done like that for a very long time...25 years or so''". In addition, he explained his current thoughts on lyrics in music; "''Song-writing is now actually the most difficult challenge in music''," he confessed.

Music

Eno recorded and mixed most of the album on a Mac, using

Logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

, over a period of four years. He also engineered it himself, "''because otherwise I would have had to spend six years in a commercial studio and pay staff, and that would have become too expensive''". "Bottomliners" and "Under" were first worked on about six years previously, on a DA88, the latter songs' drumming being supplied by Willie Green. On the former, and on the ballad "And Then So Clear" he pitch-shifted his voice up an octave, using the gender-changing function on a Digitech Pro Vocalist creating a

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

-like effect. His studio features a selection of hardware including a

Lexicon A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Koine Greek language, Greek word (), neuter of () ...

Jam Man loop sampler and an Eventide H3000 Harmonizer. The album is actually built around the "And Then So Clear" song. He says "... In one day, actually, I pretty much finished it ... I liked it so much, and I thought, how I am going release this song, and I thought, I have to write some others." On the title track he repeatedly cut up the main phrase, so that "the listener had little windows on it." Similar "

cut-up The cut-up technique (or ''découpé'' in French) is an aleatory literary technique in which a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. The concept can be traced to the Dadaists of the 1920s, but it was developed and popularized ...

" methodologies were used for the lyrics of "This," in that he used his computer to generate some of the words. "Under" is a nearly-identical version of a song that was on the unreleased 1991 album ''My Squelchy Life'', which was released in 2014 as a bonus disc with a reissue of Eno's 1992 ''Nerve Net''. It was also included in the ''Cool World'' soundtrack album. For the ambient-style "A Long Way Down" Eno manually synchronised his vocals with an out of time keyboard melody, and on "Going Unconscious" he went back to using

Koan A (; , ; ko, 화두, ; vi, công án) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and to practice or test a student's progress in Zen. Etymology The Japanese term is the Sino-J ...

generative music Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system. Historical background In 1995 whilst working with SSEYO's Koan software (built by Tim Cole and Pete Col ...

software for the textural background. The distinctions between songs and instrumentals which contain vocals are deliberately blurred, particularly on the track "How Many Worlds": "There's just enough voice in there to make you hear it as a song, making it a bluff, a deceit." The final track on the album, "Bone Bomb", was inspired by a newspaper story about a

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

girl who becomes a

suicide bomber A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

. The title refers to a point made by an Israeli doctor that when a suicide bomber detonates, the bomber's bones become shrapnel, adding to the destruction.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by

, except where noted. #"This" – 3:33 #"And Then So Clear" – 5:49 #"A Long Way Down" – 2:40 #"Going Unconscious" – 4:22 #"Caught Between" (co-lyrics by Danny Hillis and Eck Ogilvie-Grant) – 4:25 #"Passing Over" – 4:25 #"How Many Worlds" (co-lyrics by Michel Faber) – 4:47 #"Bottomliners" – 3:59 #"Just Another Day" (additional music composed by Peter Schwalm) – 4:21 #"Under" – 5:19 #"Bone Bomb" – 3:09 #"The Demon of the Mines" (Japan only bonus track) – 4:40

Notes

track 7 published by Opal Music, London (PRS) n N. America & Canada by Upala Music Inc (BMI) 2005.
tracks 8 & 9 published by Opal Music, London (PRS) n N. America & Canada by Upala Music Inc (BMI)and Editions Outshine / BMG-UFA, 2005.
Brian Eno appears courtesy of Opal Ltd.Discogs - Opal Records
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Personnel

* Vocals, multiple instruments – Brian Eno * Keyboards –

Jon Hopkins Jonathan Julian Hopkins (born 15 August 1979) is an English musician and producer who writes and performs electronic music. He began his career playing keyboards for Imogen Heap, and has produced but also contributed to albums by Brian Eno, ...

* Guitar –

Leo Abrahams Leo Matthew Abrahams (born 1977 in Camden, London) is an English musician, composer and producer. He has collaborated with a multitude of professional musicians, including Brian Eno, Katie Melua, Imogen Heap, Jarvis Cocker, Carl Barât, Regina ...

, Steve Jones * Violin – Duchess Nell Catchpole * Piano, Synthesizer – Peter Schwalm * Drums – Willie Green, Peter Schwalm * Loops –

Brad Laner Brad Laner (born November 6, 1966 in Los Angeles, California) is an American musician and record producer best known for his work with the shoegaze band Medicine, which he founded and led. Prior to Medicine, he was involved in avant-improv ban ...

, Brian Eno, Peter Schwalm * Effects ccasional Signals– Dino * Effects plutters– Barry Andrews * Spoken vocals – Inge Zalaliene (track 4), Aylie Cooke (track 11) * Mastering – Simon Heyworth * Artwork by esign & Layout– Sarah Vermeersch * Photography ack– Qin Siyuan * Photography ront Artwork By over Design– Brian Eno

Charts

References

External links

''SoundOnSound'' article

''Mix'' article

Album's Russian release
{{DEFAULTSORT:Another Day On Earth Brian Eno albums 2005 albums Albums produced by Brian Eno Hannibal Records albums