Brian Eno

Brian Peter George Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno (/ˈiːnoʊ/, born 15 May 1948), also mononymously known as Eno, is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, and activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambient music and electronica, and for producing, recording, and writing works in rock and pop music. A self-described "non-musician", Eno has helped introduce unconventional concepts and approaches to contemporary music. He has been described as one of popular music's most influential and innovative figures. In 2019, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music.

Born in Suffolk, Eno studied painting and experimental music at the art school of Ipswich Civic College in the mid-1960s, and then at Winchester School of Art. He joined the glam rock group Roxy Music as its synthesiser player in 1971 and recorded two albums with them before departing in 1973. He then released solo albums, beginning with Here Come the Warm Jets (1974), and explored minimal music on the influential recordings Discreet Music (1975) and Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978), with the latter coining the term "ambient music".

Alongside his solo work, Eno collaborated frequently with other musicians in the 1970s, including Robert Wyatt, Robert Fripp (as part of the duo Fripp & Eno), Harmonia, Cluster, Harold Budd, David Bowie, and David Byrne. He also established himself as a sought-after producer, working on albums by John Cale, Jon Hassell, Laraaji, Talking Heads, Ultravox, and Devo, as well as the no wave compilation No New York (1978). In subsequent decades, Eno continued to record solo albums, and produce for other artists, most prominently U2, Coldplay and Peter Gabriel, and including Daniel Lanois, Laurie Anderson, Grace Jones, Slowdive, Karl Hyde, James, Kevin Shields, and Damon Albarn.

Dating back to his time as a student, Eno has also worked in other media, including sound installations, film and writing. In the mid-1970s, he co-developed Oblique Strategies, a pack of cards featuring aphorisms intended to spur creative thinking. From the 1970s onwards, his installations have included the sails of the Sydney Opera House in 2009 and the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank in 2016. An advocate of a range of humanitarian causes, Eno writes on a variety of subjects and is a founding member of the Long Now Foundation. His modern political activism has also included awareness of the conditions in the Gaza Strip before and during the Gaza war, climate crisis awareness, opposing the Conservative Party, opposing Brexit, and advocating for freedom for Julian Assange.