Released
in March of 1982, Brian Eno’s Ambient 4: On Land, is celebrating its
40th anniversary this month. It is a continuation of his development of
the concept of ambient music, though it brings in a decidedly dark,
brooding quality to the music, which gives it a subtle dissonance and
sense of impending menace. Not exactly the kind of thing one might
associate with this genre as it was previously defined by Eno, but it
certainly ties into the direction ambient would take throughout the
remainder of the decade with artists such as Lustmord and Zoviet France
further pursuing that aura of darkness.
The process for creating
this album involved a continual layering technique which Eno referred to
as “composting”. In this approach, the synthesizer was found to be of
increasingly limited use as Eno incorporated elements like field
recordings and sounds of natural objects like sticks, lengths of chain
and stones. "Unheard" audio elements were mixed and edited into
compositions, repeatedly building up sounds only to strip them back down
again in later processes. The eventual results became nearly
incomprehensible in terms of identifying individual instruments and
sound sources, though on occasion, something might pop up like Jon
Hassell’s effect laden trumpet in the track, Shadow. Eno also had
fairly specific intentions in mind insofar as how to listen to the
album, even designing a three speaker configuration which he suggested
would be accommodating to any recording which featured broad stereo
imaging.
The album was recorded in NYC, gradually over the course
of several years beginning in September of 1978 until it was completed
in January of 1982. In addition to Eno and the above mentioned Hassell,
other musicians of note who contributed to the album include bassist
Bill Laswell and keyboardist Michael Beinhorn of Material.
