Eno also played a pivotal role in recording David Bowies vaunted Berlin trilogy.
(Eno releasedSomeday WorldandHigh Life, his two collaborative albums with Underworlds Karl Hyde, in 2014.)
It took me by surprise a little bit, he says.
Credit: Warp Records
I wasnt planning it as my next record project when I started it.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:The Shipsounds distinct from the rest of your catalog.
It isnt until about six minutes or so that I actually start singing.
It was a long, long time before I realized this could be an album.
I think it would be nice to have that on while Im painting.
Youve always pushed the boundaries of technology and recording techniques.
Did you use any new methods on this album?Ive been working withMarkov chaingenerators which are statistical randomizers.
I was using them to generate text and, in some cases, music as well.
Its not magic theyre tools.
I like that kind of technical language.
Then I had accounts written from the lifeboats by people watching the Titanic sinking.
And also part of a book about the blitz over London.
All of that stuff went in and then the statistical generator reconfigures it.
It churns out tons of stuff.
The trick is to go through it and find the bits that surprise you.
How did you settle on having Serafinowicz read that part?Hes a voice genius.
Hes taken films of Trump doing political talks or interviews or whatever and hes re-voiced them.
Hes using exactly the same words that Trump is using, but hes done them in different voices.
He has one in a very [adopts accent]upperclass, patrician, English voicelike this.
Youve talked about some ofThe Ships reference points: The First World War, the sinking of the Titanic.
Why did those events inspire you?
The thought that Oh, we know how everything works now.
Then, of course, you saw they actually hadnt.
The Titanic collapsed and the First World War was an unmitigated disaster.
It was in theWashington Post; Ive got the cutting framed.
This is exactly the same thing as happened the first time around, a hundred years before.
Those are the things I like thinking about, but the record is about itself.
The interesting thing is the painting.
The record ends with aVelvet Underground cover.
And if I did music, was it going to be experimental music or pop music?
I [wanted] to do all of them.
I couldnt think how that was possible then I heard the first Velvet Underground album.
But the third one was very quiet and [had] very beautiful songs.
It was such an amazing shock.
I thought, How amazing that they have the balls to do that.
The search for truth is a fruitless search, essentially.
What you need is to search for a workable hypothesis.
You just try on a different kind of ignorance and work with that.
I recorded this song 15 years ago, but it sat there in my archive.
I always loved it, I just didnt know what to do with it.
It didnt fit on any of the albums that I made.
But then I went to see a production calledPolitical Motherby the Israeli director Hofesh Shechter.
The piece was so angular and violent and very, very abrasive.
It was just the most amazing feeling.
It was like sinking into a beautiful bath after a violent day.
I thought, Thats a shape that I like.
Just go off on a very different tangent and end in another place completely.
With the passing of artists like David Bowie and Prince this year, were seeing so many musical tributes.
I cant bear all that sort of Twitter s. What the f is the point of all that?
So I didnt really take part in any of that.
I didnt want to.
I think very fondly of him, but I dont want to bathe in it.
[Rock and roll] artists are now starting to die itll be my turn soon.
I cant bear all that.
[Bowie] dealt with the whole thing rather well.
I quite admired the timing.
Really, it was brilliant!
It was a production.
He wrote to me just before he died.
When I read that email again its obvious to me that he was saying goodbye.
He knew about it and he took control of it.
He wasnt running scared from it.
He wasnt denying it.
Thats quite a good lesson for all of us…
But he couldnt control the fing storm of Twitter s that followed, the poor guy.
I cant bear Twitter.
Its like a blitz of trivia.
Isnt there enough trivia?
Theres so many interesting things to look at.
I just cant stand it.
