Brian Eno: Reflection album review – a river of sound, with or without end

The app version of this album has a generative, algorithmic function that allows the music to never end yet always change. It is, says Brian Eno, similar to "sitting by a river" or "gardening": "you plant the seeds and then you keep tending to them until you get a garden you like." There's great sense in having such a version, as the "traditional" release of Reflection – a 54-minute length of continuous ambient music – is actually too short. In essence, Eno has created his ambient masterwork, in that, like the aforementioned river, the flow is relentless but ever varying. That it can be listened to and appreciated during all manner of tranquil activities or work practices isn't necessarily new, but Eno's achievement is to invest the music with insistent and arbitrary melodic strengths.

[ brian-eno.net ]