Without Wind / Without Air, Roger Eno’s third solo album for Deutsche Grammophon, is released today. Available digitally and on vinyl, it comprises a mix of solo piano pieces and tracks orchestrated for various combinations of clarinet, guitar, bass, strings, synths, percussion and electronics. Soprano Grace Davidson and Roger’s daughters Cecily and Lotti Eno make guest vocal appearances, while Roger himself sings on The Moon And The Sea. Jonathan Stockhammer conducts the Scoring Berlin strings on three pieces, while Eno’s friend and producer Christian Badzura arranged and plays on several numbers as well as having co-written the opening and closing tracks, Forgiveness and After Rain.
Also out today is a performance video for the track Spell, one of three pieces for solo piano written and performed by Roger on Without Wind / Without Air. Roger played Spell live on BBC Radio 3 on Wednesday this week, when both he and Cecily joined Petroc Trelawny on In Tune to present music from the new album. The video for There Was A Ship – a folk ballad sung by Cecily Eno – will be released on 13 November.
The album title is borrowed from a lyric by Italian songwriter Pier Luigi Andreoni. Eno was originally struck by its poetry, but then reconsidered its meaning. “I was forced to look at the fragility of species and climate, and their dependence on ‘turns of chance’ and carelessness,” he explains. “This alters ‘without wind, without air’ into a warning, a vision of a bleak future.”
That sense of foreboding is audible in the dissonances of the title track, which call to mind an impending storm. Roger’s subtle piano line is joined by the dark sounds of low strings, synths and electronics; high, wordless vocals from Grace Davidson; and the piercing wail of Alexander Glücksmann’s clarinet. There is a similar feel to The Final Year Of Blossom, again featuring the pure tones of Davidson’s voice.
A limited-edition LP version of the album includes a signed artcard of an abstract image created by Roger Eno that suggests mayflies dancing above water. An insect that lives for only a few hours beyond its larval stage, the mayfly also features in Cecily’s cover design. “It’s a perfect symbol of how transient our lives are,” says Roger. “We spend most of our time in eternity – we’re born, we live, and then we go back to eternity again. We’ve just got this tiny little brief moment of flourishing.”
“I thought I had to do something different for this album,” he goes on, “because the world has changed in a way that I really don’t like and I felt it would be disingenuous not to include that in a disc. I was also trying to discover other ways to work, to break patterns I’d got so used to that I didn’t want to continue with them. I’m reluctant to show myself in my work, but this album does take the veil off.”
Comments are closed.