More Brian Eno
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- Music for Films returns to the site on this original UK pressing with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from first note to last
- Rich, smooth, tonally correct, spacious, this collection of recordings made between 1975 and 1978 was compiled and transferred with consummate skill, ensuring that the highest fidelity was maintained – this pressing sounds right
- Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
- “It is a conceptual work intended as a soundtrack for imaginary films, although many of the pieces had already appeared in actual films.”
- 5 stars: “Eno’s analog music definitely benefits from presentation in the digital domain… it is essential Eno, and a landmark collection drawn from among his work.”
This vintage UK Polydor pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
What The Best Sides Of Music for Films Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1978
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
Standard Operating Procedures
What are the criteria by which a record like this should be judged? Pretty much the ones we discuss in most of our Hot Stamper listings: energy, frequency extension (on both ends), transparency, harmonic textures (freedom from smear is key), rhythmic drive, tonal correctness, fullness, richness, and so on down through the list.
When we can get all, or most all, of the qualities above to come together on any given side we provisionally award it a grade of “contender.” Once we’ve been through all our copies on one side we then play the best of the best against each other and arrive at a winner for that side. Repeat the process for the other side and the shootout is officially over. All that’s left is to see how the sides matched up.
Record shootouts may not be rocket science, but they’re a science of a kind, one with strict protocols developed over the course of many years to ensure that the sonic grades we assign to our Hot Stampers are as accurate as we can make them.
The result of all our work speaks for itself, on this very record in fact. We guarantee you have never heard this music sound better than it does on our Hot Stamper pressing — or your money back.
What We’re Listening For On Music for Films
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
The Players
- Rhett Davies – trumpet on “Strange Light”, assistant producer
- John Cale – viola on “Patrolling Wire Borders”
- Phil Collins – percussion
- Robert Fripp – electric guitar on “Slow Water”
- Fred Frith – electric guitar
- Percy Jones – bass guitar
- Bill MacCormick – bass guitar on “Two Rapid Formations”
- Dave Mattacks – percussion on “Two Rapid Formations”
- Paul Rudolph – guitar
- Rod Melvin – electric piano
- Ritva Saarikko – cover photograph
Vinyl Condition
Mint Minus Minus is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)
Those of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don’t have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful recordings.
If you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that’s certainly your prerogative, but we can’t imagine losing what’s good about this music — the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight — just to hear it with less background noise.
Side One
M386
Aragon
From The Same Hill
Inland Sea
Two Rapid Formations
Slow Water
Sparrowfall (1)
Sparrowfall (2)
Sparrowfall (3)
Side Two
Quartz
Events In Dense Fog
‘There Is Nobody’
A Measured Room
Patrolling Wire Borders
Task Force
Alternative 3
Strange Light
Final Sunset
AMG 5 Star Rave Review
The basic core of tracks making up Brian Eno’s Music for Films was originally assembled in 1976 for inclusion in a promotional LP of prospective cues sent to film directors. In early 1978, a bit before Music for Airports, Editions EG released Music for Films with little more than Eno’s cryptic comment: “some of it was made specifically for soundtrack material, (and) some of it was made for other reasons but found its way into films.”
As with most things Eno, this led to a good deal of speculation and controversy. One filmmaker long ago stated, “All of that is crap — this music was never used in any films,” and another film student who had tried out some of the cues: “this is the worst music for films ever. These cues don’t synch to anything.” However, the second filmmaker unintentionally discovered the essence of Music for Films — the 18 pieces here are little films, stimulating the visual part of one’s brain and thus fulfilling their promotional purpose. In that sense, Music for Films was revolutionary in 1978.
Eno’s analog music definitely benefits from presentation in the digital domain… The mid-’70s were still a rather angry period in electronic music at the academic level. Eno’s approach differed significantly from both that, and from others, in that his music was not pop-oriented either. Music for Films is the unrecognized link between Discreet Music and Music for Airports — it is essential Eno, and a landmark collection drawn from among his work.
Background
Music for Films is the seventh solo studio album by British musician Brian Eno. It is a conceptual work intended as a soundtrack for imaginary films, although many of the pieces had already appeared in actual films.
The album is a loose compilation of material from the period 1975 to 1978, composed of short tracks ranging from one-and-a-half minutes to just over four, making it the antithesis of the long, sprawling, ambient pieces he later became known for. The compositional styles and equipment used also carried over onto Eno’s work on some of David Bowie’s 1977 album Low.
Unlike Eno’s later ambient works, Music for Films utilises a broader sonic palette, with Eno’s synthesizers and “found sounds” being supplemented by standard studio instrumentation played by other musicians (see Credits).
-Wikipedia