I can't quite remember how Brian Eno's ambient music crept up on me. It was very slow. I didn't get it at first: I heard the space, but thought there weren't enough ideas in the space. And gradually the ears learn that the space is the idea. Or something. The sleeve notes and the diagram (bearing the marks of cybernetics and Stafford Beer, a kind of 20th century rationalist voodoo) almost certainly engaged me before the music did. Eno is a genius explainer. God, I wish I had that talent. He can take any idea and lead you into it so that you are open to its power. Thus the sleeve note essay opened me to the listening repeatedly to the record until I embraced its pace and repetition.
When was this? I'd guess 1983 or '84, but I can't really remember. I know I was more or less indifferent to Eno in '81 and a dedicated fan by '86. But there was no vivid moment of revelation. Thinking about it, I may have come to Discreet Music via the Fripp and Eno (No Pussyfooting) album, which I've never owned, but which John Neale insisted I tape for myself during my last term at school, in '82.
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