Brian Eno: Drums Between the Bells

Label: Warp

Brian Eno is the sort of artist who can do anything he wants, and one of the very few who should be allowed to do anything he wants. His latest project has been years in the making, or at least in the thinking, since he befriended the poet Rick Holland in the early '00s and knew he wanted to do something in the studio with his words. Drums Between the Bells doesn't incorporate Holland's voice, but rather those of a handful of people whose tone and enunciation Eno found interesting (we're talking people who work at his gym and stuff like that). The resulting tracks make for a mixed bag, as you'd imagine, but it's never less than interesting: "Seedpods" slips along on a soft skitter of a beat, while "Dreambirds" sparkles with illuminated ambience and "Sounds Alien" ratchets up the tension and darkness. Consecutive tracks "The Airman" and "Fierce Aisles of Light" are closest to what you may already think this album sounds like: mesmerizing manipulated vocals intoning their way through shade-filters of tones and sonic events, all prescribed by the master of such things. At times it even suggests an alternate-universe's Coil! How much are the tracks themselves inspired by Eno's impressions of the Holland poems he employs? Worth investigating, once you've spent time with this curious and cool album.