Between 1975 and 1978, Brian Eno’s Obscure imprint produced ten LPs to document the work of virtually unknown composers at the time. These records continue to inspire both practitioners and fans of experimental, ambient and modern classical music.
Ensemble Pieces, Obscure No. 2, is the second LP to feature composer Gavin Bryars—the first being his magnum opus The Sinking of the Titanic. Bryars would play a big role in finding projects for Obscure and helping to realize them in the studio with Eno.
Christopher Hobbs was an early member of Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra and performed with anarchic free improv titans AMM. Ensemble Pieces presents two Hobbs compositions, his debut recordings. On “Aran”, the composer is accompanied by Bryars and John White—utilizing various percussion, reed organs and toy piano to construct an otherworldly gamelan music, while the Scottish bagpipe-inspired “McCrimmon Will Never Return,” featuring Hobbs and Bryars on reed organs, evokes the slow-motion minimalism of Eliane Radigue or Folke Rabe.
John Adams’ masterpiece American Standard premiered in 1973 at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art where these recordings were made. While this neo-Romantic three-part suite explores distinctly American musical forms (march, hymn and jazz ballad), Adams threads in found-sound tape elements from AM talk radio, which suggests a mottled landscape of Robert Ashley, The Residents or Negativland.
The album’s closing piece, Bryars’ “1, 2, 1-2-3-4,” features Hobbs, Cardew, Derek Bailey, Eno and Roxy Music’s Adam McKay. Each musician performed while listening on headphones to identical pre-recorded music, though factors such as tape-speed and battery life of the individual Walkmans provided tantalizing variables that affected pitch and duration. Despite this process-oriented approach, “1, 2, 1-2-3-4” is exquisitely sublime—at times predicting the gauzy, haunted music of The Caretaker.
