Classic Albums: Drawn From Life

Back in 2001 or so there was a Brian Eno & J. Peter Schwalm album that I downloaded off of soulseek entitled "Drawn From Life". I really enjoyed it and listened to it quite a bit. At some point between crashed hard drives and computer upgrades, I lost it and forgot the name of the album, but I'd occasionally have recollections of this album and I'd do some unsuccessful half-hearted googling trying to find it.

Fast forward to last week when I was talking to my friend and fellow musician Seventh Swami and he sent me a link to a podcast with Brian Eno and Will Wright. This got me thinking about that album again and I set off to find it for real this time. As it turned out, it actually wasn't too hard to find when I looked in the right place. The Brian Eno Discography page on wikipedia had it listed, and as soon as I saw the album title I knew I'd found it. I confirmed by listening to some samples on its amazon page, but this time I actually ordered the CD instead of downloading it. Back in 2001 192k MP3s were fine, but nowadays I prefer lossless audio (e.g. flac).

The CD arrived a few days later and it was great to get reacquainted with it. It really is a beautiful album, best described as ambient electronic with some live strings, percussion, and vocals mixed in. I'd highly encourage people who are fans of eno, portishead, telefon tel aviv, david last, and similar artists to check this one out.

One other note, my friend Benjamin Dauer writes music that reminds me of this album. Check out his music, as well as his collaboration with Dominic Dixon as Offsets for a great free EP entitled 'Circular Drift' that I've enjoyed thoroughly.