Brian Eno announces special Record Store Day release, ‘FOREVER VOICELESS’
In October 2022, Brian Eno released his 22nd solo album, FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE. The release was distinctive for being the master producer’s first album to feature vocals since 2005’s Another Day On Earth. Now, as a special release for Record Store Day 2023, Eno has announced FOREVER VOICELESS, a forthcoming instrumental version of the album.
FOREVER VOICELESS will be released on crystal clear vinyl exclusively for Record Store Day 2023 on April 22nd. In keeping with the annual celebration, fans will be able to purchase the record on the day at around 260 independent record stores across the UK. Subsequently, it will also be made available across selected streaming platforms.
As press materials reveal, Eno experimented with the use of tonal over major chord changes for the original album, which was at times choral and hymnal and at others, apocalyptic and then hauntingly beautiful.
“Like everybody else – except, apparently, most of the governments of the world – I’ve been thinking about our narrowing, precarious future, and this music grew out of those thoughts,” Eno said, introducing FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE back in October. “Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I’ve been feeling about it…and the music grew out of the feelings.
“Those of us who share those feelings are aware that the world is changing at a super-rapid rate, and that large parts of it are disappearing forever…hence the album title. These aren’t propaganda songs to tell you what to believe and how to act. Instead, they’re my own exploration of my own feelings. The hope is that they will invite you, the listener, to share those experiences and explorations”.
“I’ve been doing what you might call landscape music for quite a few years, making atmospheres and moods and places rather than narratives,” Eno added of his latest studio work. “They’re not stories, they are places you can go to, musical places.”
“The voice is there almost as a narrator, not so much as a personality,” he added. “It’s not necessarily me; it’s not autobiographical in a certain way; it’s meant to be anonymous.”
In a recent review of the original album, Far Out said: “Eno has once again shown the full breadth of his musical ambition, which stretches beyond music in a cinematic sense. As a concept album, it conveys a vital warning, underscored by Eno’s sense of wonder and a musical portrayal of Earth’s beauty. Therefore, as one would watch a film, it must be heard from start to finish. The project is difficult to fault, and the return of Eno’s voice is more than welcome.”
Whether you enjoyed the return of Eno’s voice in FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE or not, it will be interesting to hear how Eno uses the bare instrumentals to convey the same thoughts and feelings in FOREVER VOICELESS.
Listen to ‘There Were Bells’ from FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE below.
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