VARIOUS ARTISTS

VARIOUS ARTISTS: “The Complete Obscure Records Collection 1975-1978” (10xcd Dialogo, 2023)

Among the most important releases of the past year, one that truly deserves mention is "The Complete Obscure Records Collection 1975-1978", a box set pressed in a limited run of a thousand copies (both on CD and Lp) by Dialogo, the Milan-based label devoted to rescuing and spreading the word about valuable musical gems long out of print and forgotten.

Obscure Records was a British label founded and run by Brian Eno; over three years, from 1975 to 1978, it released ten albums of experimental music by Anglo-American composers. The albums, all featuring covers built around the same darkened photograph, were distinguished from one another by the artist's name printed on the front and by a different detail of that photo picked out in colour. The back cover, as was customary in the classical record world, carried detailed analyses of the works and biographical notes on the respective composers.

Gavin Bryars, Christopher Hobbs, John Adams, Brian Eno, David Toop, Max Eastley, Jan Steele, John Cage, Michael Nyman, The Penguin Café Orchestra, John White, Tom Phillips and Harold Budd were the musicians involved in this surreal journey through contemporary classical, chamber and ambient music. The series of albums released by Obscure would go on to exert an incalculable influence on generations to come.

Ten albums unique and innovative in their own way, at times era-defining, such as Brian Eno's "Discreet Music", shaped by the minimalist sequencing of LaMonte Young and Ligeti. With this work, Eno theorised the uselessness of music, producing sonic fabrics meant to accompany everyday life while remaining at its margins.

Or "Music From The Penguin Café", music that "has no function, that slips through your fingers like plain water, that alludes without keeping its promises. It is as futile as an object one doesn't really need and which, at best, could serve any purpose at all; its life, at that point, is a miracle, or perhaps an unbearable threat. From the very incipit (let's picture it as the theme tune of the renowned Orchestra), the music prepares something that then never happens, points towards emptiness, opens onto yet another introduction; continually pushed further by this small undertow, the 'big mouthful' eludes us, the enjoyment that in fact keeps being served to us, over and over, casually, to the point of bewilderment. It is precisely this discretion (conveyed through the elegant breathing of the rhythms, the disdainful timbre of the cello, the precise curve of the melodies) that is the record's decisive surprise. We are not used to it, and deep down it troubles us. We resist it the way one resists someone showing us the good manners we've grown accustomed to. We fear being deceived because we were deceived long before. In the end: we don't know what to make of a pleasure we cannot explain or trace back (to a reason, a school of thought, a need)" (Bertoncelli, Paesaggi Immaginari, Florence, Giunti, 1998).

Or, again, "Pavilion Of Dreams", the extended cycle of works begun by Harold Budd in 1972, inspired by the Qur'an and scored for alto saxophone (Marion Brown), electric piano (Budd himself), harp (Maggie Thomas), celesta (Richard Bernas), glockenspiel (Gavin Bryars) and marimba (Jo Julian, Michael Nyman, John White, Howard Rees). A mystical, minimalist masterpiece that sets out to describe the swirling void created by the distance between contemporary music and free jazz.

The release of "The Complete Obscure Records Collection 1975-1978", produced in collaboration with all the musicians involved or their estates, is a discographic event without precedent. It gathers together the entire run of the ten albums released and produced by Eno for Obscure, many of which have been out of print for years or never even made it to CD. It faithfully reproduces the original artwork and comes with a precious booklet of over 120 pages, featuring previously unpublished testimonies from Gavin Bryars, David Toop, Max Eastley, Richard Bernas, the complete transcription of the original liner notes for every album, plus contributions and in-depth pieces by Carlo Boccadoro, Tom Recchion, Bruno Stucchi and Walter Rovere.

Unmissable.

Table of contents:

Obscure CD no. 01:

–         Gavin Bryars: “The Sinking of the Titanic” (1975)

Obscure CD no. 02:

–         Christopher Hobbs/John Adams/Gavin Bryars: “Ensemble Pieces” (1975)

Obscure cd no. 03:

–         Brian Eno: “Discreet Music” (1975)

Obscure cd no. 04:

–         Max Eastley/David Toop: “New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments” (1975)

Obscure cd no. 05:

–         Jan Steele/John Cage: “Voices and Instruments” (1976)

Obscure cd no. 06:

–         Michael Nyman: “Decay Music” (1976)

Obscure cd no. 07:

–         The Penguin Café Orchestra: “Music from the Penguin Café Performed by Members of the Penguin Café Orchestra” (1976)

Obscure cd no. 08:

–         John White/Gavin Bryars: “Machine Music” (1978)

Obscure cd no. 09:

–         Tom Phillips: “IRMA. An Opera by Tom Phillips” (1978)

Obscure cd no. 10:

–         Harold Budd: “The Pavilion of Dreams” (1978)

(February 4, 2024)

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13/05/2026