The Shutov Assembly


The Shutov Assembly is the twelfth solo studio album by Brian Eno, released on 9 November 1992 on Opal via Warner Bros. Records. One of Eno's ambient albums, it was reissued in 2014 with a second disc with bonus tracks. It is considered the follow-up to Nerve Net, which was released that same year.

Overview

The album is dedicated to Russian artist Sergei Shutov, and was created as an assembly of tracks for him, as he had mentioned to Eno the difficulty he had of getting Eno's music in the then-communist Russia.
On the rear cover of the CD, the ten tracks of nine letters are arranged in a grid as seen in a word search puzzle.
The album's Rykodisc entry describes it as "a journey through Eno's sumptuous audio-visual installations from around the world, each track touching down on a particular event and atmosphere."

Track listing

  1. "Triennale" – 4:02
  2. "Alhondiga" – 3:16
  3. "Markgraph" – 3:39
  4. "Lanzarote" – 8:37
  5. "Francisco" – 4:44
  6. "Riverside" – 3:50
  7. "Innocenti" – 4:19
  8. "Stedelijk" – 5:26
  9. "Ikebukuro" – 16:05
  10. "Cavallino" – 3:06
; 2014 reissue's bonus disc
  1. "Eastern Cities" – 4:32
  2. "Empty Platform" – 4:29
  3. "Big Slow Arabs" – 4:39
  4. "Storm" – 6:29
  5. "Rendition" – 5:15
  6. "Prague" – 2:39
  7. "Alhondiga Variation" – 6:33

    The music

Talking to Mojo magazine in 1998, Eno explained that The Shutov Assembly tracks were originally proposals for orchestral pieces. The Netherlands Metropole Orkest played two performances of the music in June 1999, orchestrated by Steve Gray, at the Holland Festival, which ran from 5 to 26 June in Amsterdam, the first of which was broadcast live on Dutch radio.
Though the music can certainly be classified amongst his other ambient works, most of the compositions have a certain "dark" feel to them. In an interview, Eno said "it's the association with danger that I didn't use to like, and it's exactly that, what I do like now".

Credits