REVIEWSBrian Eno, ‘Drums Between the Bells’

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Release Date: July 5, 2011
Label: Warp

After last year's alternately ambient and visceral Small Craft on a Milk Sea, rock's go-to high-minded producer explores sketchier territory on this collaboration with Twittering British poet Rick Holland. Sonic strategist Eno is clearly in "oblique" mode here, opening with the word-jazz rumble and squawk of "bless this space," veering into the eerie New Age trickle of "dreambirds," then concocting a frantic jumble for "sounds alien." It doesn't help that pieces like "A Title" sound as if they're emanating from a Hogwarts poetry slam.