Roger Eno
VOICES (1983)

A strange experience for me. I used to listen to this album nightly when I was in grad school - it was one of two discs I'd put on as I went to bed at night. It was calming, full of mood and texture, and it seemed to help me dream better.

My daughter has been having trouble getting to sleep at night, so I gave her VOICES to listen to in bed. Tonight when she played it, I was in a position to hear it for what I realized was the first time in nearly fifteen years. Several things happened.

I was overcome by an immersive wave of memory in a way I haven't experienced before. As I caught the first notes I time traveled to 1985 instantly, thinking of things I haven't thought of in years: My coffee machine; The girls rugby team that practiced in the field outside my window; Absolute vodka; A painting I made with a Japanese calligraphy brush; The mysterious person in the room next door, who I never saw once in nine months. I teach in class that one of the characteristics of sound, especially as a design element, is the ability for it to trigger a memory in the listener. I don't know that I've experienced it this profoundly before.

Next, I realized I remember every note of this recording. When the songs would fade out. When the simple piano melody would be doubled with a synth line. When the piano would suddenly be processed with an effect. I was remembering the details of songs I haven't heard since I was in my twenties.

Then, my mood changed radically to something that can only be described as "sadness for missed opportunities". This was solitary period of my life - especially the first year of graduate school. I spent a lot of time on my own reading, painting, and listening to music. I didn't have a lot of spare cash so I rarely went out to bars or parties. Rarely socialized with my classmates. I wasn't dating anyone. I was for all intents and purposes a graduate hermit.

The album is a collection of songs by Roger Eno, younger brother of the producer/musician/video artist Brian Eno, all played on piano. No other performance credits are given, but with Daniel Lanois producing and Michael Brook mastering (and Brian surely lurking around the studio) one can assume they are responsible for the layers of processing and electronics which give this recording an almost touchable sheen. It was recorded shortly after Brian's APOLLO soundtrack, which Roger and Lanois collaborated on, and is concurrent with Harold Budd's best work (THE PEARL, PLATEAUX OF MIRROR, LOVELY THUNDER), all of which shares many characteristics with VOICES. Roger is a composer so there is more structure, like Budd, than most of brother Brian's work in the ambient realms. Debussy and Satie are evoked more than a few times in the simple melodies and general tempo. The pace is unhurried. The music unfolds like a bunch of origami swans floating in a lake. The album has an almost synestheitic effect, sounds evoking colors and images, landing like sonic raindrops on the windowsill.

This is a strong album. I'd forgotten how good it was. I'd certainly forgotten how much I had connected it to a short period of my life. I think I'm going to have to dig out that other bedtime disc - Anthony Philips PRIVATE PARTS AND PIECES - and see what happens.

Posted 19 August 2005.