Brian Eno

Brian Eno, born Brian Peter George Eno on 15 May 1948, coined the term “ambient music” with 1978’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports, a record built around atmosphere, repetition and space rather than conventional song structure. An English musician, songwriter, producer, visual artist, sound designer, author and political activist, he has worked across art rock, electronic music and pop while describing himself as a “non-musician.” In 2019, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music.

Raised in Suffolk, Eno studied painting and experimental music at Ipswich Civic College in the mid-1960s before attending Winchester School of Art. He joined Roxy Music as its synthesiser player in 1971, recording two albums with the glam rock group before leaving in 1973. His debut solo album, Here Come the Warm Jets (1974), was rock-oriented, while later releases such as Discreet Music (1975) moved toward minimal music and the open-ended forms that would define much of his solo work.

During the 1970s, Eno collaborated with Robert Wyatt, Robert Fripp, Harmonia, Cluster, Harold Budd, David Bowie, John Cale and David Byrne. His work with Fripp became a recurring partnership under the Fripp & Eno name. He also developed a major parallel career as a producer, working with Jon Hassell, Laraaji, Ultravox, Devo and Talking Heads, and producing the 1978 no wave compilation No New York. Later production and recording credits include U2, Coldplay, Peter Gabriel, Daniel Lanois, Laurie Anderson, Grace Jones, Slowdive, Karl Hyde, James, Kevin Shields and Damon Albarn.

Eno’s work extends beyond records. In the 1970s he co-developed Oblique Strategies, a deck of aphoristic cards designed to prompt creative thinking. Since his student years, he has also made sound installations, worked in film and written on a range of subjects. His installations have included projects involving the sails of the Sydney Opera House in 2009 and the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank in 2016. He is a founding member of the Long Now Foundation and has advocated for humanitarian causes, climate-crisis awareness, opposition to Brexit and the Conservative Party, and freedom for Julian Assange. In September 2025, he signed Film Workers for Palestine’s pledge not to work with Israeli film institutions it described as implicated in genocide and apartheid against Palestinians.