A Year With Swollen Appendices

Brian Eno FABER

Reissue of 1995 journal featuring Bowie, Bono, Bosnia and more.

First published 25 years ago, Eno’s diary now reads like a time capsule of more innocent Britpop times, before Blair and Iraq, Brexit and Trump. But beyond its limited hindsight value, this sprawling chronicle of the avant-pop professor’s busy bohemian schedule is peppered with erudite mini-essays on creativity, technology, terrorism, politics and more. David Bowie, Bono, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney all have supporting roles.

Juggling multiple creative projects, including Bowie’s 1. Outside album and U2’s Passengers supergroup, Eno can be tetchy and haughty but also very droll: “Bono drives with the sort of abandon that suggests he really believes in an afterlife”. Elsewhere he claims “all the world’s major problems can be solved with either oyster sauce or backing vocals”, and ponders: “Why doesn’t anyone ask old Germans exactly how great it felt to be a Nazi?”

Between grim trips to war-torn Bosnia and tediously detailed family meals, Eno confirms his reputation as a connoisseur of carnal pleasure, forever leering at the “glorious, wobbling, kissable softness” of womanly breasts and bottoms. He even frets he may die without fully embracing “the honeyed chorus of bottom-slapping, tit-sucking, cock-pumping, belly-bulging lust issuing from the planet”. Poor Brian, planet-sized brain but still the Benny Hill of art-rock. ■■■■■■■■■■