There can be no doubt that Brian Eno is one of the most influential musical figures of our age, a culture-shifting thinker and pioneer of electronic and ambient music and rock and popular music on a grand scale. Eno, an award-winning, appropriately innovative 2024 documentary about the English musician, composer, producer and activist, will be presented by the Wave Farm organization at the Hi-Way Drive-In on May 29 as a benefit to support local radio station WGXC.
Born in 1948, Eno initially rose to prominence as a member of Roxy Music, joining the glam/art rockers in 1971 and recording two albums with them before leaving in 1973. He made his solo debut with 1974’s rock-oriented Here Come the Warm Jets and by 1975 had begun exploring more minimalist experimental sounds with Discreet Music; his 1978 album Ambient 1: Music for Airports is often cited as the inspiration for the name of the ambient music genre. In addition to making his own music, from the 1970s onward Eno has worked as a highly creative collaborator and producer with the likes of David Bowie, Robert Fripp, U2, Devo, Talking Heads, John Cale, Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson, Grace Jones, Coldplay, Robert Wyatt, and many others.
Eno has been called a groundbreaking “generative” work. The film uses a computer program to choose footage and edit it so that a different version is seen each time it is shown. The Hi-Way Drive-In presentation will up the avant-garde ante even further by showing separate iterations of the film simultaneously on the outdoor cinema’s four screens. Adding to the program are pre-live screening sunset performances by experimental guitar great Fred Frith (Henry Cow) and Eucademix (aka Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto); interstitial music will be provided by Sunjiro (aka Kadallah Burrowes).
Eno will screen at the Hi-Way Drive-In in Coxsackie on May 29 at 7pm. Tickets are $26.50 and benefit WGXC.
This article appears in May 2025.
