New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Today we are delighted to share 'Decline and Fall' - a video that was personally commissioned by Brian Eno and taken from his forthcoming album, Film
Music 1976 - 2020. 'Decline and Fall' originally featured in Eno's original score for the movie 'O Nome da Morte'. The film was directed by Henrique Goldman who was therefore a natural choice to direct this new video. Showcasing Eno's skill in augmenting the moving image, the video is a stunning marriage of cinematography and sound, contrasting intrigue, shock and beauty in a timely metaphor of our relationship with the Earth.
"Our video juxtaposes two cinematic narratives set in Brazil, one of the main frontiers in the final battle between Man and Nature. The first comprises fragments of a drama about the tortured soul of the assassin portrayed in 'O Nome da Morte', and the second depicts a magical natural phenomena - the Invisible River of the Amazon - a meteorologic process on a colossal scale, whereby rainforest trees continually spray billions of gallons of water into the atmosphere."
"The video is foreboding and suspenseful. Somewhere in the vast Brazilian landscape, something momentous lurks in the background. An unforeseen, greedy and merciless force disrupts the divine stream of life. The same force drives the hitman, who stealthily steps out of the shadows to kill for money. As rain and fire, fiction and science, birth and death, nature and civilisation, art, love and greed continually juxtapose each other, we become aware of the delicate natural balance that is being severely disrupted by our civilisation." Henrique Goldma
Brazilian born and London based, Goldman has directed, written and produced several award-winning features, including the internationally acclaimed 'Princesa', which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2001, won the Best Film Award at the Out-Fest in 2002 and is one of the most watched Brazilian feature films on YouTube, with over 7 million views. His feature 'Jean Charles', premiered at Toronto in 2009 and won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2009 Dinard Film Festival. Through his production company
Mango Films, Henrique has both directed and produced a string of documentaries for international broadcasters including RAI (Italy), Channel 4 (UK) and Globo Network (Brazil).
Brian Eno - Film
Music 1976 - 2020
Double vinyl / CD - UK release: November 13th
Double vinyl / CD - US release: January 22nd
Download / stream - worldwide release: November 13th
Tracklist:
1. 'Top Boy (Theme)' from 'Top Boy' - Series 1, directed by Yann Demange, 2011
2. 'Ship In A Bottle' from 'The Lovely Bones', directed by
Peter Jackson, 2009
3. 'Blood Red'from 'Francis Bacon's Arena', directed by Adam Low, 2005
4. Under' from 'Cool World', directed by Ralph Bakshi, 1992
5. 'Decline And Fall' from 'O Nome da Morte', directed by Henrique Goldman, 2017
6. 'Prophecy Theme' from 'Dune', directed by
David Lynch, 1984
7. 'Reasonable Question' from 'We Are As Gods', directed by
David Alvarado / Jason Sussberg, 2020
8. 'Late Evening In Jersey' from 'Heat', directed by Michael Mann, 1995
9. 'Beach Sequence' from 'Beyond The Clouds', directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, 1995
10. 'You Don't Miss Your Water' from 'Married to the Mob', directed by Jonathan Demme, 1988
11. 'Deep Blue Day' from 'Trainspotting', directed by
Danny Boyle, 1996
12. 'The Sombre' from 'Top Boy' - Series 2, directed by Jonathan van Tulleken, 2013
13. 'Dover Beach' from 'Jubilee', directed by Derek Jarman, 1978
14. 'Design as Reduction' from 'Rams', directed by Gary Hustwit, 2018
15. 'Undersea Steps' from 'Hammerhead', directed by
George Chan, 2004
16. 'Final Sunset' from 'Sebastiane', directed by Derek Jarman, 1976
17. 'An Ending (Ascent)', from 'For All Mankind', directed by Al Reinert, 1989
Eno's long-standing affair with film goes all the way back to 1970 with his soundtrack to Malcolm Le Grice's short experimental film 'Berlin Horse'. In 1976 he followed this with 'Sebastiane' and a long forgotten Greek b-horror film, 'Land Of The Minotaur' aka 'The Devil's Men'. This led to an unstoppable momentum largely initiated by the release of his 1978 studio album, 'Music For Films'. Early classic Eno film moments include 'Prophecy Theme' from
David Lynch's 'Dune', 'From The Beginning' from Dario Argento's 'Opera', 'Force Marker' and 'Late Evening In Jersey' from Michael Mann's 'Heat', 'Under' from Ralph Bakshi's 'Cool World' and his moving cover of
William Bell's soul classic, 'You Don't Miss Your Water', in Jonathan Demme's 'Married to The Mob'.
'Music For Films' was a loose compilation of material recorded between 1975 - 1978. It was intended as a conceptual soundtrack for imaginary films and only the closing track, 'Final Sunset' was written for an actual film. It proved to be a fruitful project with nearly every piece on the album going on to be used in future films, including several of Derek Jarman's, the remake of Jean-Luc Goddard's 'Breathless', John Woo's 'A Better Tomorrow', 'Rock 'n' Roll High School' and Todd Hayes' 'Safe'.
Eno again explored this approach with U2 as 'Passengers' on their collaboration album, 'Original Soundtracks 1'. Four of the tracks from the album were used in films prior to release: 'Beach Sequence' and 'Your Blue Room' in Michelangelo Antonioni's 'Beyond the Clouds', 'Miss Sarajevo' in an eponymous documentary about a beauty pageant held in the midst of besieged '93 Sarajevo, and 'One Minute Warning' in Mamoru Oshii's Japanese animation classic, 'Ghost in the Shell'. Another track, 'Always Forever Now' later appeared in 'Heat'.
In the mid-seventies Eno began a rich and rewarding collaboration with British film maker, Derek Jarman, who initially commissioned him to record 'Final Sunset' for the closing scene to his first feature film, 'Sebastiane'. The collaboration continued all the way through until Jarman's untimely death in 1994. Including the several tracks in 'Sebastiane', this collaboration resulted in Eno's music in four of Jarman's films, including 'Still Water' and 'Dover Beach' in 'Jubilee', 'Blue' and the entire score of the autobiographical 'Glitterbug' - his final film.
'An Ending (Ascent)' and 'Deep Blue Day' are taken from 'Apollo:
Atmosphere & Soundtracks', Eno's collaboration with his brother
Roger Eno and
Daniel Lanois. The music was originally written for Al Reinert's landmark documentary of the Apollo moon landing, 'For All Mankind' although since then 'An Ending (Ascent)' has taken on a life of its own and is now remembered just as much from Steven Soderbergh's 'Traffic',
Danny Boyle's '28 Days Later' and
Miguel Arteta's 'Beatriz at Dinner'. It even made an appearance in the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. And then there's 'Deep Blue Day', which will forever be identified with Ewan McGregor's legendary toilet dive in 'Trainspotting'.
Aside from 'Glitterbug' and 'For All Mankind', Eno has also provided complete scores for a number of other films including his work with Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams on
Peter Jackson's 'The Lovely Bones'. More recently he has scored Henrique Goldman's atmospheric Brazilian serial killer biopic, 'O Nome da Morte' aka 'A Man Called Death', Gary Hustwit's spotlight on pioneering industrial designer Dieter Rams, 'Rams', and his latest, a documentary film on long-time friend and associate, Stewart Brand, 'We Are As Gods', which will have its public premiere in early 2021.
Eno has also scored extensively for television, including all three series of award-winning UK crime drama 'Top Boy', for which he received a Bafta, and
Danny Boyle's 'Mr Wroe's Virgins', which also earned him and
Roger Eno a Bafta nomination for 'Best Original Television Music'. Other television credits include his scores to BBC
Natural World's 'Hammerhead', 'Francis Bacon's Arena', Neil Gaiman's futuristic urban series, 'Neverwhere', and Stewart Brand's BBC mini-series 'How Buildings Learn'.
Eno has had hundreds of pieces of his music used in films, documentaries and television programmes, including more than 20 complete scores for some of the best-known directors in the world. Film
Music 1976 - 2020 is a long-awaited album that finally brings together 17 of his most recognisable film and television compositions. A perfect introduction to this enormous body of work.
