Day 222: Brian Eno – Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror

Today I wanted a mellow album for a post-yoga shower and I’d already been listening to Brian Eno earlier on, so I settled on trying Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror. I’ve already covered Ambient 1: Music for Airports early on in the project so I get to skip all the pleasantries, so that along with two bouts of Eno in a day probably makes this a win-win-win.

Album cover courtesy of Editions EG

As you can probably guess, Ambient 2 is the second part of Eno’s Ambient series. It features composer Harold Budd playing soft improvisational piano over Eno’s soundscapes. It was released in in 1980 as the pair’s second collaboration, having previously worked together on Budd’s The Pavilion of Dreams.

I remember feeling that I really got ambient music for the first time listening to Ambient 1 and I could appreciate what it was for: it’s something that you can focus on to enjoy it, or let it sink into the background to just subtly enhance whatever space you are in. It feels very clean and simple, or like it said in the Ambient 1 liner notes, it’s “as ignorable as it is interesting”.

Unsurprisingly, the same continues with Ambient 2. It just makes my shower a nicer place to be, but it’s not something I have to actively focus on to listen to, I can just let my mind wander and do my thing while enjoying that it’s there. With these daily albums I often feel like I want to give them a fair shake and actually listen to them, maybe with my eyes closed, knowing the story and listening to the lyrics. As much as I love doing that, with this one, it’s nice to know that that’s not even the point – it’s there for your enjoyment, or not, if you choose not to focus on it.

Great shower album. I read that Harold Budd also worked with Cocteau Twins, it’s pretty easy to see why that would work when listening to it. 9/10, will most definitely have this on in the future, possibly quite often.