Another Day on Earth

Another Day on Earth is the twenty-third solo studio album by Brian Eno, released in June 2005 on Hannibal Records.

Another Day on Earth
Studio album by
Brian Eno
Released13 June 2005 (UK, Europe)
14 June 2005 (US)
Recorded2001–2005
StudioBrian Eno's Wilderness Studio,
Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK
GenreAmbient
Length46:50
LabelHannibal
ProducerBrian Eno
Brian Eno chronology
The Equatorial Stars
(2004)		 Another Day on Earth
(2005)		 Beyond Even (1992–2006)
(2007)
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic71/100[1]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
SpinA−[3]
Entertainment WeeklyB+[4]
Robert Christgau[5]
Pitchfork Media6.1/10[6]
Mojo[7]
The Guardian[8]
Tiny Mix Tapes[9]
PopMatters[10]

Overview

This is the first Eno album to chiefly contain vocals in more than two decades. Speaking of the album, Eno said, "The first one I've done like that for a very long time...25 years or so". In addition, he explained his current thoughts on lyrics in music; "Song-writing is now actually the most difficult challenge in music," he confessed.

It's very easy to make music now but lyrics are really the last very hard problem in music. What I think lyrics have to do is engage a certain part of your brain in a sort of search activity so your brain wants to say, 'Here are some provocative clues as to what this song might be about'.

Music

Eno recorded and mixed most of the album on a Mac, using Logic, over a period of four years. He also engineered it himself, "because otherwise I would have had to spend six years in a commercial studio and pay staff, and that would have become too expensive".

"Bottomliners" and "Under" were first worked on about six years previously, on a DA88, the latter songs' drumming being supplied by Willie Green. On the former, and on the ballad "And Then So Clear" he pitch-shifted his voice up an octave, using the gender-changing function on a Digitech Pro Vocalist creating a vocoder-like effect. His studio features a selection of hardware including a Lexicon Jam Man loop sampler and an Eventide H3000 Harmonizer.

The album is actually built around the "And Then So Clear" song. He says "... In one day, actually, I pretty much finished it ... I liked it so much, and I thought, how I am going release this song, and I thought, I have to write some others."

On the title track he repeatedly cut up the main phrase, so that "the listener had little windows on it." Similar "cut-up" methodologies were used for the lyrics of "This," in that he used his computer to generate some of the words.

"Under" is a nearly-identical version of a song that was on the unreleased 1991 album My Squelchy Life, which was released in 2014 as a bonus disc with a reissue of Eno's 1992 Nerve Net. It was also included in the Cool World soundtrack album.

For the ambientesque "A Long Way Down" Eno manually synchronised his vocals with an out of time keyboard melody, and on "Going Unconscious" he went back to using Koan generative music software for the textural background.

The distinctions between songs and instrumentals which contain vocals are deliberately blurred, particularly on the track "How Many Worlds": "There's just enough voice in there to make you hear it as a song, making it a bluff, a deceit."

The final track on the album, "Bone Bomb", was inspired by a newspaper story about a Palestinian girl who becomes a suicide bomber.[11] The title refers to a point made by an Israeli doctor that when a suicide bomber detonates, the bomber's bones become shrapnel, adding to the destruction.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Brian Eno, except where noted.

  1. "This" – 3:33
  2. "And Then So Clear" – 5:49
  3. "A Long Way Down" – 2:40
  4. "Going Unconscious" – 4:22
  5. "Caught Between" (co-lyrics by Danny Hillis and Eck Ogilvie-Grant) – 4:25
  6. "Passing Over" – 4:25
  7. "How Many Worlds" (co-lyrics by Michel Faber) – 4:47
  8. "Bottomliners" – 3:59
  9. "Just Another Day" (additional music composed by Peter Schwalm) – 4:21
  10. "Under" – 5:19
  11. "Bone Bomb" – 3:09
  12. "The Demon of the Mines" (Japan only bonus track) – 4:40

Notes

track 7 published by Opal Music, London (PRS) [in N. America & Canada by Upala Music Inc (BMI)], 2005.
tracks 8 & 9 published by Opal Music, London (PRS) [in N. America & Canada by Upala Music Inc (BMI)] and Editions Outshine / BMG-UFA, 2005.[12][13]
Brian Eno appears courtesy of Opal Ltd.[14]

Personnel
  • Vocals, multiple instruments – Brian Eno
  • Keyboards – Jon Hopkins
  • Guitar – Leo Abrahams, Steve Jones
  • Violin – Duchess Nell Catchpole
  • Piano, Synthesizer – Peter Schwalm
  • Drums – Willie Green, Peter Schwalm
  • Loops – Brad Laner, Brian Eno, Peter Schwalm
  • Effects [Occasional Signals] – Dino
  • Effects [Splutters] – Barry Andrews
  • Spoken vocals – Inge Zalaliene (track 4), Aylie Cooke (track 11)
  • Mastering – Simon Heyworth
  • Artwork by [Design & Layout] – Sarah Vermeersch
  • Photography [Back] – Qin Siyuan
  • Photography [Front], Artwork By [Cover Design] – Brian Eno

Awards
  • The album was chosen as one of Amazon.com's Top 100 Editor's Picks of 2005.

Charts
Year Chart Peak position
2005 USA Top Electronic Albums #13
2005 USA Top Independent Albums #33

References
  1. http://www.metacritic.com/music/another-day-on-earth/brian-eno
  2. https://www.allmusic.com/album/r744667
  3. [A] cosmos-goosing masterwork. [Jul 2005, p.104]
  4. In a pop world where everything feels amped up, who could have imagined that this once-chilly music could sound so comforting. [17 June 2005, p.79]
  5. http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Brian+Eno
  7. Mojo (Publisher) (Jul 2005, p.102) - 4 stars out of 5 - "Woozy, hypnotic and human, this is perhaps Eno's most personal record to date..."
  8. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/jun/10/popandrock.shopping1
  9. http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/brian-eno-another-day-earth
  10. Brian Eno: Another Day on Earth < PopMatters
  11. "Eno's Evolution". The St. Petersburg Times. 3 June 2005. Retrieved 22 February 2008.
  12. Discogs - Another Day On Earth Digipak, Europe
  13. Discogs - Another Day On Earth Digipak repress, Europe
  14. Discogs - Opal Records
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