Brian Eno Harold Budd Daniel Lanois LP The Pearl 1984 1st Press Ambient

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Brian Eno Harold Budd Daniel Lanois LP The Pearl 1984 1st Press Ambient
Fantastic composition from budd and eno. This will evoke emotion from any listener. Some of the best ambient music I have ever heard.

Hearing Budd's piano slowly fade in with the start of "Late October" is just one of those perfect moments -- it's something very distinctly him, made even more so with Eno's touches and slight echo, and it signals the start of a fine album indeed. Acting in some respects as the understandable counterpart to Ambient 2, with the same sense of hushed, ethereal beauty the partnership brought forth on that album, The Pearl is so ridiculously good it instantly shows up much of the mainstream new age as the gloopy schlock that it often is. Eno himself is sensed as a performer on the album, if not by his absence then by his very understated presence. The merest hints of synth and whisper play around Budd's performances, ensuring the latter takes center stage. Eno and Daniel Lanois handle the production side of things, their teamwork once again overseeing a winner. When they bring themselves a little more to the fore, it still always is in the subtlest of ways, as with the artificially higher-pitched notes from Budd on "Lost in the Humming Air." Part of the distinct charm of the album is how the song titles perfectly capture what the music sounds like -- "A Stream With Bright Fish" is almost self-defining. Another key point is how Budd truly captures what ambience in general can and does mean. "Against the Sky" is a strong example -- it can be totally concentrated upon or left to play as atmospherics and is also at once both truly beautiful and not a little haunting in a disturbing sense. Other highlight tracks include the deceptively simple title track, as serene a piece of music as was ever recorded, and the closing "Still Return," bringing The Pearl to a last peak of beauty.

The Pearl is the second collaborative studio album by Harold Budd and Brian Eno, released in August 1984 by Editions EG and produced by Eno and Daniel Lanois in Hamilton, Ontario. The Pearl is similar to Budd and Eno's previous collaboration, Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror (1980), consisting mostly of subtly treated piano textures, but with more pronounced electronic treatments and nature recordings. The album has been well received by music critics, and is considered by some as a landmark work in ambient music.

The Pearl was recorded in Hamilton, Ontario in 1984 by Harold Budd, Brian Eno, and Daniel Lanois. The trio shared a house during the recording sessions and worked on the record seven days per week. The music was recorded over two weeks, and then it took 8-12 months to finish production and decide which tracks worked best together. The group had no set approach to working beyond looking for and capturing unique moments; such as "Lost In The Humming Air", on which Budd improvised to humming noises by Brian Eno played on a Yamaha CS-80 and recorded in one take. In the case of "Dark Eyed Sister", Budd recorded it at a small studio beforehand and sent to Eno to develop further; this, according to Budd, was the "extreme version" of how they worked. Eno made most of the decisions on aesthetics, spending hours working solo and recording pieces at different speeds. Pianos in the studio included an acoustic piano, as well as Yamaha and Rhodes electric pianos. For treatments, the group used a Yamaha DX7, CS-80, Casio CT-200, Casio tone 202, a Sequential Circuits Pro One, AMS digital delay, Eventide Harmonizer, and an EMT 250 plate reverb.