Brian Eno: Before And After Science (Remastered) CD Track Listing

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Brian Eno Before And After Science (Remastered) (1977)
Before And After Science (Remastered)\n2004 Virgin Records, Ltd.\n\nOriginally Released 1977\nCD Edition Released January 1989\nRemastered CD Edition Released June 1, 2004\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: Before and After Science is really a study of "studio composition" whereby recordings are created by deconstruction and elimination: tracks are recorded and assembled in layers, then selectively subtracted one after another, resulting in a composition and sound quite unlike that at the beginning of the process. Despite the album's pop format, the sound is unique and strays far from the mainstream. Eno also experiments with his lyrics, choosing a sound-over-sense approach. When mixed with the music, these lyrics create a new sense or meaning, or the feeling of meaning, a concept inspired by abstract sound poet Kurt Schwitters (epitomized on the track "Kurt's Rejoinder," on which you actually hear samples from Schwitters' "Ursonate"). Before and After Science opens with two bouncy, upbeat cuts: "No One Receiving," featuring the offbeat rhythm machine of Percy Jones and Phil Collins (Eno regulars during this period), and "Backwater." Jones' analog delay bass dominates on the following "Kurt's Rejoinder," and he and Collins return on the mysterious instrumental "Energy Fools the Magician." The last five tracks (the entire second side of the album format) display a serenity unlike anything in the pop music field. These compositions take on an occasional pastoral quality, pensive and atmospheric. Cluster joins Eno on the mood-evoking "By This River," but the album's apex is the final cut, "Spider and I." With its misty emotional intensity, the song seems at once sad yet hopeful. The music on Before and After Science at times resembles Another Green World ("No One Receiving") and Here Come the Warm Jets ("King's Lead Hat") and ranks alongside both as the most essential Eno material. -- David Ross Smith\n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nMORE THAN JUST ANOTHER WORLD, August 9, 2007 \nBy Kerry Leimer (Makawao, Hawaii United States)\nOften denigrated due to its proximity to "Another Green World", "Before and After Science" is in many ways a more mature and experimental record than its beloved sibling. First, a few particular things to recall about the original release: The very sentimental watercolor reproductions originally struck this listener as utterly out of sync with the rather strident adherence to some twentieth century art music ideas explored in the compositions. A more fitting approach to the visuals was demonstrated a few years earlier, in the portfolio created for "So Far" by Faust, which in turn set the template followed by Peter Gabriel's "Us" portfolio. Second, and more importantly, was Eno's printed insistence that no noise reduction systems were used in the recording. This is itself interesting to note because the sound quality of BAAS is decidedly un-commercial. It doesn't "sparkle" and there are no detectable artificial peaks -- the usual spots being cranked up between 1kHz and 2kHz -- that used to be so essential to successful airplay. Instead, the overall tonality is round, warm and, in context, completely out of touch with most of the recordings of the late 70s let alone early 00s, and this reissue still respects his decision for what might be called an "unadulterated" approach to the sound -- an interesting decision from someone known for manipulating audio signals. \n\nTo be clear, this should be considered a very positive attribute, despite the sometimes nagging low frequency compromises due to the equally interesting absence of compression. The point seems to simply be a dedication to the sound of the instruments "as is", in direct opposition to the completely non-referential definitions of fidelity that determine most music production today. How many critics and listeners this apparently "muted" sonic presence added to the ranks of the record's detractors is hard to say, but it does seem likely that many people did not get past the non-commercial sound to allow themselves to actually hear what was going on, as still evidenced by some of the reviews posted here which seem puzzled by the character of the sound, mistakenly referred to as the "sound quality". \n\nIn addition to its clearly non-commercial orientation there are many brilliant conceptual and performance moments spread throughout. Hard to ask more of the contributions of Percy Jones and Phil Collins, fresh in love with Brand X, or Kurt Schwitters' posthumous vocals which presage the still astonishing collaboration with David Byrne on "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts". There is the wonderfully simple and beautiful mesh of pattern and lyric that is "By This River", the collaboration with Cluster and the "Caucasian Lullaby"-like instrumental exchanges of "Through Hollow Lands" with Fred Frith. And of course the nearly erotic yet somnolent, minimalist and wide-open "Julie With..." (no pun intended). Not to forget Bill MacCormick, Brian Turrington and others covering the range from pop to experimental rock. \n\nConsidering that vast span of pop to experimental and the artists and influences present here, BAAS is now something of a time capsule, with each track representing an epitome, of sorts, of the various styles and theories running behind the most interesting musics of its day. Thirty years on, the ideas are still compelling, and the artistic decisions still stand out as remarkable. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nMan in transition., June 13, 2005 \nBy Michael Stack (Watertown, MA USA)\nBrian Eno's "Before and After Science", his last song-based album until the about-to-be-released (June, 2005) "Another Day on Earth" is in many ways the album you would hope it would be, reflective of his past, pointing in some ways to the future, very much texture-oriented music. On the other hand, while it has its moments, it fails to capture the immediacy of "Here Come the Warm Jets" or the beauty of "Discreet Music", but its still a great listen. \n\nThe album is really two sides, the first being more energetic, the second being a bit more ambient in feel. On the first side, there are three things that immediately draw you in-- the first is an overt use of vocal harmonies-- Eno's vocals are almost always in a harmony form with two or three voices singing the line ("No One Receiving", melodic pop song "Here He Comes"). The second is bassist Percy Jones, whose playing on a few of the tracks, in particular "Kurt's Rejoinder", is nothing short of astonishing. The third is the use of space-- look no further than standout "Energy Fools the Magician", where the four piece (Eno, Jones, drummer Phil Collins back when he was a drummer and guitarist Fred Frith) manipulate space as a fifth instrument to amazing effect. \n\nThe second side is much more in line with the ambient work of Eno's most recent albums-- a overwhelming feel of haunted ambient with vocals dominates. The entire side is full of fantastic material, from the haunted "Julie With..." to the lyrically brilliant and dark "Spider and I". \n\nOverall, its a rewarding album that finds an artist caught in between forms, but even in transition, his brilliance shines through. Recommended. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nAnother Eno World, March 23, 2005 \nBy William Scalzo (Niagara Falls, NY)\nThe last in Eno's series of quirky, unique albums from the 70's before he moved totally into ambient music and expored his "rock" side only through production of other artists. \n\nLike the titles that came before, Before and After Science finds Eno stringing together a series of offbeat numbers ranging from rock to pop to ambient and everything in between. This record was sequenced with most of the more ambient numbers at the end, unlike Another Green World's free admixture of styles. I personally liked the AGW way better, but fortunately we have the option these days of programming the songs in any order we want, so problem solved. \n\nEno's star-studded array of collaborators had become as legendary as his skewed sense of pop by this point, with everyone from Phil Manzanera to Phil Collins to Robert Fripp sitting in on this one. They were Eno veterans, but Eno's concurrent interest in German art-rock brings Can's Jaki Liebzeit and Moebius and Roedelius from Cluster to the table on Before and After Science. \n\nMy favourite moments: The atmospheric but too-short "Energy Fools the Magician" with the Brand X rhythm section of Percy Jones and Collins, with Fred Frith. The frantic new wave single "King's Lead Hat" (an anagram of Talking Heads) with Fripp. And all of the old "side 2" especially the beautiful "By This River" with Cluster. The piano has haunted me since I first heard it way-back-when, and I enjoy playing it myself. The closing "Spider and I" summons up a massive wall of synths-n-bass, and Eno's resigned vocal is quite fitting as he was about to leave the rock world (as a performer) for a very, very long time. \n\nI have the earlier CD edition and to tell you the truth I don't notice anything radically different about the remaster, so the cheaper original CD might be a good bargain unless you're a real audiophile. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nOne of Brian Eno's finest albums, March 6, 2005 \nBy Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA)\nBrian Eno is one of the most marvelous paradoxes in all of music. He is both a musical genius and yet not the least virtuosic. On the one hand, as he is avid to emphasize, he is at most an average musician. He is competent as a guitarist, a keyboardist, and bass player, but hardly brilliant. If one hears a strikingly brilliant instrumental solo on a number, it is almost invariably the result of a contribution by one of the many musical guests on his albums. On the other hand, he is astonishingly masterful at constructing exquisite musical competitions, layering one marvelous element upon another to produce music that is both energizing and utterly unique. Eno possesses an almost preternatural ability to add a new wrinkle that cranks up the level excitement to a higher level, almost functioning like a sonic masseur who locates one musical pressure point after another with his subtle variations and machinations. BEFORE AND AFTER SCIENCE is one of his very finest albums. I would put it on a short list of his most essential works, along with the three other vocal albums (HERE COME THE WARM JETS, TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN BY STRATEGY, and ANOTHER GREEN WORLD) and one purely instrumental album, AMBIENT IV. Although he is at best an adequate vocalist, his vocal albums have a richness of texture and content that is missing in all of the instrumental efforts. To say that the instrumental albums are more boring than the vocal ones doesn't quite get at the point: the instrumental albums seem empty at their core. They are not bad, but except for the sole exception noted above, none of them come anywhere near to the level of the four vocal albums. \n\nAlthough BEFORE AND AFTER SCIENCE was Eno's fourth (and up to the present, last-one fears that he may never attempt another) vocal album, it is possibly his most pop oriented. Although none of the cuts was a candidate for a top 40 hit, this album is far more accessible than anything else he has recorded. This could be a fault if the individual songs were not so marvelously done. Although this is not my favorite vocal album, it nonetheless has several cuts that I enjoy as much as anything that Eno has done. Nothing on this album approaches the extraordinary beauty of a cut like "Everything Merges With the Night" from ANOTHER GREEN WORLD, but it does contain several remarkable numbers. My personal favorites are "Blackwater," a joyously surreal nautical tale that is notable for its hard driving energy and relentless forward momentum, and "King's Lead Hat," which shows Eno at his creative peak. Other highlights include the opening cut "No One Receiving," the fascinating "Kurt's Rejoinder," "Energy Frees the Magician," and the gentle, folkish "Here He Comes." \n\nI originally got Eno's albums around the time that they were first released, and over the years they have provided me with as much consistent enjoyment as anyone I have listened to. Now that most of his better albums have been re-released on CD, all fans of music should avail themselves of this opportunity to experience these albums firsthand. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW \nEno's True Masterpiece!, August 25, 2004 \nBy Eraserhead (Twin Peaks)\nThere are many people who belive that 'Here Come the Warm Jets' is Eno's best album & there are an equal amount of people who are behind 'Another Green World', but I believe Eno's true masterpeice is 'Before and After Science'. It utilizes everything that was great about Brian Eno, from his fast paced glam rock to his slow, meditative confessionals, and even leaves room for some ambient music(which Eno invented). Whereas 'Here Comes the...' was sometimes overflowing with too much "glam", and 'Another...' was slightly overdoing it with the ambience/instrumentals, 'Before and...' strikes just the right balance. The first side is mostly in the same vein as 'Here Comes...' with some fabulous songs like "Kings Lead Hat". Side 2 on the other hand is THE gratest side of music in rock history. It is basically a mix of what Eno experimented with on Side 2 of David Bowie's 'Low' and what he himself did on 'Another Green World'. Every song on Side 2 has shimmering beauty that I have never heard anywhere else. 'Here he Comes', 'Julie With...', 'By This River', & 'Spider and I' are all perfect songs, and 'Through Hollow Lands' is one of Eno's most beautiful instrumentals (along with Sombre Reptiles, Becalmed, & anything off 'Music for Airports). Even though Eno made around 6 other classic solo albums (Another,Here Come,Taking Tiger Mountain,& Ambient 1,3,&4), I have always felt the 'Before and After Science is not only his greatest achievement, but one of the most amazing recordings in rock history. Do yourself a favor and buy it now! \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW \n"Re-transfers"? Wot? Good music, though., June 15, 2004 \nBy "yawuh2002" (USA)\n\n2 cents on the music: very good, very wonderful, very Eno. Unabashed pop (Backwater, Here He Comes) mixes with artier WTFs (Kurt's Rejoinder), nervous funk (No One Receiving), and spacier dreamscapes (Energy, Julie). I quite prefer the second half of this album, which in its textural bliss culminates in the gorgeous Spider and I, which is a fitting farewell to Eno's "vocal" era. As on his previous album Another Green World, Eno makes use of the deft rhythm battery of Phil Collins and Percy Jones, who were both playing in Brand X at the time. (And one of 'em was in Genesis, too, I think.) For all his talk about being a non-musician, blah blah blah, Eno knew the value of hiring top creative players, and he himself is no slouch at playing imaginative keyboards - listen to that almost orchestral buildup in Julie With. So, the music gets four stars from me, even if a couple of the tracks grate the nerves on occasion.\nBut if you're reading this, chances are you're wondering about the SOUND of these reissues. I had cassettes of these early Eno albums back in college, I had original CDs, I had the 1993 boxsets...and I figured this time out, we'd get the once-and-for-all, definitive, hi-quality editions we'd all been waiting for. And...er...well, it's nothing that drastic. These are not remasters, these are not remixes, these are "retransfers"; to my ears, this apparently means a wee bit more clarity, a wee bit higher CD master volume (but not much), and that's it. No doubt they sound better than the original CDs, but it's not much of an improvement over what was heard in the Vocal and Instrumental boxsets over a decade ago. And those were needing an upgrade, if you ask me.\n\nThe problem is in the original mixes. No One Receiving, for example, buries the drums and removes almost all the visceral punch you could expect from a track with two basses. It's maddening to have to adjust your home EQ/volume to try and bring this track out of its shell. On the other hand, Kurt's Rejoinder puts the bass WAY OUT THERE, and I'm left wondering why Eno couldn't have found a happy medium somewhere. Actually, it's some of the bass/drum tracks on Another Green World that frustrate me the most, but there are bits on this album, particularly the leadoff track, that could have used some 2004 tweaking.\n\nTo clarify, I'm not complaining about the analog beauty of the album. Those keyboard washes in Julie With sound wonderful to me, better than any digital recording. There's a "datedness" to the sound of this record that cannot be replaced (or fixed). But I'm still left with the opinion that these latest reissues are not all they could have been. Nevertheless, these have become the definitive editions for now, so grab this album and its predecessor, have your remote handy, turn out the lights, cue up and enjoy. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW \nClassic Eno release gets even better, June 4, 2004 \nBy My Science Fiction Twin "If at first the idea... (My Little Blue Window, USA) \n"Before and After Science" represented Eno in peak form. It's mixture of art-rock songs and ambient instrumental passages marked a turning point for him as well; this would be the last solo album where he would sing for more than a decade. "No One Receiving" with its funky, lumpy bass line and it's odd melody immediately captures your attention. "King's Lead Hat" (an anagram for Talking Heads) reflected Eno's hope that he would be selected (which he was) to produce the band's albums. In fact, you can hear echoes of Eno on the trio of Heads albums he produced. While there's no denying David Bryne and the band's genius, it's clear that Eno had a huge impact as a producer on helping the band expand on their original sound.\n"Spider and I" closes the album with one of Eno's most gentle melodies. It sounds almost like a lullaby and the gentle music could easily lull you to sleep. It helped set the stage for Eno's next stage where he devoted himself full time to developing ambient projects. \n\nThe remastered sound using the DSD system comes through with the vibrance and warmth one would expect from the album. While the previous edition of the album sounded very good, there's better clarity and depth evident in the recording on this edition even when listened to on a cheap stereo system. My only disappointment is the lack of thought put into the packaging. There's no liner notes, no lyrics and while the cardboard digipak is housed in a nice plastic container, the presentation inside is bare bones. We get the album credits and no more. While that reflects the original issue of the album on vinyl, it wouldn't have hurt to expand the packaging (and include a bonus track or two). \n\n\nHalf.com Details \nContributing artists: Andy Fraser, Dave Mattacks, Fred Frith, Phil Collins, Phil Manzanera, Robert Fripp \n\nAlbum Notes\nPersonnel: Brian Eno (vocals, guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion); Kurt Schwitters (vocals); Paul Rudolph (guitar, bass guitar); Phil Manzanera, Robert Fripp, Fred Frith (guitar); Achim Roedelius (piano, electric piano); Mobile Moebius (electric piano); Percy Jones, Brian Turrington, Bill McCormack (bass guitar); Dave Mattacks, Andy Frazer, Phil Collins, Jaki Liebezeit (drums); Rhett Davies, Shirley Caesar Williams (percussion).\n\nRecording information: Basing Street Studios, London, England; Conny's Studio, Cologne , Germany.\n\nEno's last glam-pop album before devoting himself entirely to ambient experimentation, BEFORE AND AFTER SCIENCE showcases two sides of Eno's musical personality. The first half of the disc is characterized by floppy, pop-tinged romps reminiscent of his earlier albums (and heralding later Eno-piloted projects such as the Talking Heads' SPEAKING IN TONGUES). Tunes like "Backwater" and "King's Lead Hat" (a song whose lyrics are reputedly about the Talking Heads, the title an anagram of the band's name) feature bouncy beats and keyboards, silly, riddle-like lyrics and Eno's Muppet-ish vocals. The second half is considerably more subdued: the tender, airy feeling of tracks like "Julie With" and "Spider and I" indicate Eno's softer, abstract, synthesizer-dominated direction. Taken together, the fine tracks of this disc frame two sides of Eno: the pop songster and the ambient composer.\n\nIndustry Reviews\n4 stars out of 5 - 'No One Receiving' and 'Here He Comes' are simply great pop tunes.\n\n\nROLLING STONE REVIEW\nBefore and After Science is being touted as Brian Eno's most commercial album, and with some reason: it's a graceful, seductively melodic work, and side one even kicks off with a neat little disco riff. But this view also confuses the issue. People who think of Eno solely in terms of the static, artsy instrumentals on David Bowie's Heroes and Low forget, or never knew, that on Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), the master of dadaist cybernetics also made some of the wittiest and most enjoyable music of our time. These records were supremely entertaining, in the best sense, and they were rock & roll. By contrast, Before and after Science is austere and restrained, an enigma in a deceptively engaging skin.\n\nNot that Eno isn't the avant-garde intellectual genius everyone always says he is. But he's also a deeply emotional artist whose music, for all its craft, often seems to emerge straight from the subconscious, his compositions suffused with a humane serenity and marvelous, clearheaded tenderness in the face of decadence. In this context, Eno's obsession with patterns is the modern equivalent of the romantic's craving to recapture a lost past. And this obsession is the real source of both the surreal, infectious high spirits and the almost subliminal melancholy that run in constant parallel through all his work.\n\nOn Before and after Science, the gaiety is given a sketchy, restless treatment, and the melancholy predominates. As a result, the new LP is less immediately ingratiating than either Taking Tiger Mountain or Here Come the Warm Jets. Still, the execution here is close to flawless, and despite Eno's eclecticism. the disparate styles he employs connect brilliantly. At first, the pulsating drive of "Backwater" seems totally at odds with the resigned lyricism of "Julie With..." or "Spider and I," but it soon becomes clear that drive and lyricism are only complementary variables, organized by the album's circular structure.\n\nLike all of Eno's records, Before and after Science is concerned with journeys that have no destination and end only in pauses. Traditional pastoral images of river and sky are the LP's central verbal motifs; when cued to the electronic instrumentation and to Eno's shifting, kinetic sense of rhythm, these images take on a powerful, futuristic concreteness. The classical irony, "You can never step in the same river twice," is the album's real epigraph in more ways than one.\n\nBrian Eno's position is ambiguous almost by definition: a perfect child of science, he uses its rationalism to celebrate mystery. For him, technology is not bloodless machinery, but a wondrous instrument of delight. This delight, however muted, is still what makes Before and after Science linger so vividly in the mind. One title here may crystallize the paradox: "Energy Fools the Magician." That seems to say it all--until you realize it says just as much the other way around. (RS 265 -- May 18, 1978) -- TOM CARSON
This newage cd contains 10 tracks and runs 39min 44sec.
Freedb: 89094e0a
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