1LP Color Vinyl Edition of Brian Eno’s The Ship in eco-packaging & newly remastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road
The remastered edition of Eno’s seminal 2016 album The Ship is out today. It comes in eco-packaging and is available in coke bottle green transparent color vinyl.
Brian Eno commented, “ I’ve been talking and singing about ships for a long time…right back to my first albums. Ships symbolize freedom, escape, technology, and community – but also alone-ness in the vastness of the oceans, and stowaways and slaves. And I found that ship songs allowed me to think in the first person plural – ‘we’ – rather than the singular ‘I.’ I like to write about us more than about me.”
“The album The Ship is an unusual piece in that it uses voice but doesn’t particularly rely on the song form.” Eno continues, “It’s an atmosphere with occasional characters drifting through it, characters lost in the vague space made by the music. There’s a sense of wartime in the background and a sense of inevitability. There is also a sense of scale which suits an orchestra and a sense of many people working together.”
The Ship began life as a multi-channel sound installation in 2016, premiering in Stockholm and then successfully moving to Denmark, Geneva, Athens, Barcelona, Trento, and most recently to Kyoto. On becoming a piece of music, it was the first Eno record to feature vocals since 2005’s Another Day On Earth and was partly inspired by the sinking of the Titanic and the First World War. The opening track, “The Ship,” and the second, “Fickle Sun (i)” unfold over the majority of the album. They then give way to “Fickle Sun (ii): The Hour Is Thin,” with narration from actor Peter Serafinowicz, and “Fickle Sun (iii),” a celebrated interpretation of The Velvet Underground’s “I’m Set Free.”
Eno’s work is also currently being featured live elsewhere; the award-winning luminescent LED turntable is the basis of the stage of U2’s celebrated residency, U2:UV Achtung Baby, Live at Sphere in Las Vegas.
Order Brian Eno – The Ship HERE
Reviews for ‘The Ship’:
“The Ship is a great, unexpected record. The title track and “Fickle Sun (i)” on their own and as a connected piece of music are marvelous accomplishments, distinctive in Eno’s catalog. And “I’m Set Free” immediately ranks among the most perfect-sounding pop songs Eno has ever had a hand in making.” – Pitchfork
“The music of “The Ship” is tolling and elegiac, while “Fickle Sun,” with lyrics about the “dismal work” of a soldier’s life, is in constant metamorphosis. Electronic sounds melt into orchestral upheavals and guitar distortion; voices, natural and synthetic, loom from all directions.” – The New York Times
“The Ship is the work of someone who fully believes in the power of art as an empathic tool, as a means to invoke a particular viewpoint, an unconsidered perspective.” – The Quietus
“sits somewhere between the chilly calm of Music for Airports and the eerie evocations of the Suffolk landscape found on 1982’s On Land” – The Guardian
The Ship
1LP Color Vinyl Edition of Brian Eno’s ‘The Ship’ in eco-packaging
conceived and written by • brian eno except “i’m set free” written by • lou reed
produced by • brian eno
assistant producer • peter chilvers
recorded by • brian eno and peter chilvers
additional singers & players
peter chilvers • programming, 3d sound analyst,
ableton live operator, string keyboards on the ship
and additional keyboards and vocoder on fickle sun
leo abrahams • guitar on i’m set free
jon hopkins • keyboards on i’m set free
nell catchpole • violin and viola on i’m set free
peter serafinowicz • voice on the hour is thin
nuria homs • catalan voice on the ship
members of the elgin marvels
siren voices on the ship
all other instruments • brian eno
imagery by • brian eno & nick robertson
design by • nick robertson
mastered by • miles showell at abbey road studios