Brian Eno – Thursday Afternoon (1985)

All music or art just wasn’t created for everyone to understand or share equally. That may sound harsh in our altruistic age. Nevertheless, pretending that art doesn’t exclude strikes me as rather ridiculous and frankly a lie.

Some music, like other activities, requires certain surrender. A need for self-submission before the greater discovery. Those blissful rays of sounds and light pouring out from their capture requires a bit of effort from the listener. Of course, this is nothing new. The thoughtful listener expects to be challenged, and some of us even seek for it. The music that so often turned the orthodoxy inside out (like Autechre, Kraftwerk, The Stooges… or Eno); asked us to listen with both; our emotions and our intellect. And when you can do that, you know that you’ve discovered something different.

Certainly, there are reasons for exclusivity of some art. For me, music has always been a very personal experience, a bond between the musician and listener. Each of them revealing a portion of themselves by sharing this intimate space, sharing an internal dialogue. Truth be told, it is both a unique gift and risk to have such an opportunity.

So few albums truly challenge us to connect both intellectually and emotionally without falling into the traps of sentimentality. Even 35 years after its original release, Thursday Afternoon (1985) is an album of music that just doesn’t seem to exist for many listeners. Mass understanding or not, this is Brian Eno’s impressionistic masterpiece, a never ending drone of sound that forces the listener closer and deeper into the sound. The realization of the ambient dream.

With Thursday Afternoon, Eno fulfills the promise of some of his earlier work. A Musique d’ameublement that pulls together all the ambient background atmosphere within one tireless, engaging piece of music that is completely devoid of forward movement.

The 20th-century French composer (and Brian Eno’s inspiration), Erik Satie summon up the effort to create sound environments; “a music… which will be part of the noises of the environment, will take them into consideration. I think of it as melodious, softening the noises of the knives and forks at dinner, not dominating them, not imposing itself”. It’s a task so often attempted by minimalist or ambient composers, and one that is almost never achieved.

Thursday Afternoon is not escapism or ambient techno. Its piano and synth loops aren’t for dancing or head-nodding. This isn’t music to decrease the intellectual capacity of the listener, but sound that should free the mind of a toxic environment. Enhancing, while only intended to be heard occasionally or ‘environmentally’.

Thursday Afternoon is that rarest of opportunities and should not be overlooked because of its gentle dialogue. It may very well pass you by without revealing itself. And that’s ok. Imagine sound that only exists when there is a need for it. Music specifically composed to blend it’s beauty until it is most needed.

The music on Thursday Afternoon is one long 60+ minute composition, originally designed to accompany his video installation of the same name- That is important here – this is music designed to accompany an environment. Ambient? Yes. But completely without form or structure. Random, but composed.

It’s as if the night’s sky was given a composition. The sound bleeping and flowing randomly, each portion of the whole depicting a seamless experience. Extraordinary, soothing and then… simply gone. If ever there was music created to be played on CD, Thursday Afternoon fits that bill perfectly.

Unlike so many other composers that attempt to construct music without structure, Eno doesn’t rely on merely pleasing noise. Thursday Afternoon weaves together a masterpiece of light and shade that is engaging as both: a musical score to the everyday and a stand alone listening experience. This is music that is indeed “minimal” in the purest justification of the word, music that is an absolute distillation of the tiniest details and nuisances.

The beauty and gentleness of the sound both soothing and concious-building, all depending on your need and predilections, you are grateful, even overwhelmed, by each moment of peace that the music offers you.

Interestingly enough, this stark description of isolated beauty only tell us a portion of the story. The crisp, minimal sound can just as easily break rendering the music almost nonexistent. And that’s the point. Those seeming contradictions are everywhere because we are seeing the birth of something new. The music is delicate and detailed in its execution, but almost Wagnerian in its scope and depth of purpose. The layers of composition revealing themselves only when called upon, unvisible until you observe yourself utilizing this amazing piece of music in just this manner.

Brian Eno composed many intriguing and worthwhile ambient or “Discreet Music” compositions before Thursday Afternoon. It’s a catalogue well worth exploring, but none of those records captured the fullness of his vision until this release. Perhaps it was the commercial availability of the Compact Disc in 1982? Its non-stop, silent playback finally allowed for a fulfillment of a vision that Eno had been experimenting with during his entire career.

Brian Eno’s Thursday Afternoon may not be music appreciated by everyone. And that’s ok. Here we see an innovator, an artist utilizing the tools around him to create something new.

by Shawn Ciavattone