Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks

Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks
Studio album by Brian Eno
Released	1983
Recorded	Grant Avenue Studio, Canada
Genre	Ambient, dark ambient
Length	48:08
Label	EG & various
Producer	Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois
Brian Eno chronology
Ambient #4/On Land (1982) Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983) Music for Films Volume 2 (1983)

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Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983) is an album by the British ambient musician Brian Eno. It was written, produced, and performed by Brian Eno, his brother Roger and Daniel Lanois. Music from the album appeared in the films 28 Days Later, Drive, Traffic and Trainspotting, whose soundtrack sold approximately four million copies. Two of the songs from the album, "Silver Morning" and "Deep Blue Day", were issued as a 7" single on EG Records.

Overview

This music was originally recorded in 1983 for a feature length documentary movie called "Apollo" later retitled For All Mankind, directed by Al Reinert. The original version of the film had no narration, and simply featured 35mm footage of the Apollo moon missions collected together roughly chronologically, and set to Eno's music as it appears on the CD. Although the film had some limited theatrical runs at so-called "art house" movie theaters in some cities, audience response was lukewarm. The filmmakers still felt the film could do better if it reached a wider audience, and so they re-edited the film, added narration, re-structured the music, and re-titled the film in the process. Various edits of the film were shown to test audiences for further refining. As all this was going on, the film’s release was delayed until 1989. By that time several tracks on the album were omitted from the soundtrack and replaced by other pieces by Eno and other artists.

The tracks from the album that remain on the final edit of the film are:

• Always Returning
• Drift
• Silver Morning
• Stars
• Under Stars
• The Secret Place
• An Ending (Ascent)

The newer tracks from the film that are not on the album are:

• Sirens
• Theme for "Opera"
• Fleeting Smile
• Tension Block
• Asian River
• Quixote
• 4-Minute Warning
• For Her Atoms

In the liner notes, Eno relates that when he watched the Apollo 11 landing in 1969 he felt that the strangeness of that event was compromised by the low quality of the television transmission and an excess of journalistic discussion, and that he wished to avoid the melodramatic and uptempo way it was presented. That philosophy dominated when For All Mankind ("Apollo") was originally released as a non-narrative collection of NASA stock footage from the Apollo program. The non-narrative version of the film with the Eno soundtrack was released on VHS video in 1990 by the National Geographic Society. An alternate version was also released by NASA featuring audio interviews but omitting the Brian Eno soundtrack.

The music

The album contains a variety of styles. "Under Stars", "The Secret Place", "Matta", "Signals", "Under Stars II" and "Stars" are all dark, complicated textures similar to those on Eno’s previous album Ambient 4/On Land. "An Ending (Ascent)" "Drift" and "Always Returning" are smoother electronic pieces. "Silver Morning", "Deep Blue Day" and "Weightless" are country and western inspired ambient pieces featuring Daniel Lanois on guitar.

Country music, which Eno listened to as a child in Woodbridge on American armed forces radio, was used to "give the impression of weightless space" 1.

"Under Stars" is a recurring theme in the album, first appearing as an ambient electronic bed behind a treated guitar. "Under Stars II" is the same composition, but with different effects and treatments. "Stars" is the pure background texture without the guitar.

The track "An Ending (Ascent)" was sampled in the song "Hear Me Out" by the group Frou Frou, and has been used in several films, such as Traffic and 28 Days Later

Many of the tracks on the album were recorded with soft "attacks" of each note, then played backwards, with multiple heavy echoes and reverb added in both directions to merge the notes into one long flowing sound with each note greatly overlapping each adjacent note, producing the "floating" effects that Eno desired.

The Yamaha DX7 was used extensively by Eno on the album. "...so many processings and reprocessings - it's a bit like making soup from the leftovers of the day before, which in turn was made from leftovers..." (making the album) Eno said, ".... Well, I love that music anyway .... what I find impressive about that music is that it’s very concerned with space in a funny way. Its sound is the sound of a mythical space, the mythical American frontier space that doesn’t really exist anymore. That’s why on Apollo I thought it very appropriate, because it’s very much like "space music" — it has all the connotations of pioneering, of the American myth of the brave individual...." (on country music) 4.

Live version

In the summer of 2009 a live version of the album was performed at two concerts in the IMAX cinema of London's Science Museum and in an arrangement by South Korean composer Woojun Lee for the ensemble Icebreaker with featured artist B J Cole on pedal steel guitar. The album was performed in its entirety, with the tracks in a different order, to a silent and edited version of For All Mankind. A revised version was performed twice at the 2010 Brighton Festival, where Eno was guest artistic director, before touring in the UK and Ireland later in the year.

Due to the heavily studio-processed nature of the original tracks, much freedom was given to the live performers to apply their interpretations of the recorded versions of the songs. With many of the sounds that appear on the album being processed and reprocessed, as well as blended and treated, it would have been difficult to reproduce in a live context with a high degree of accuracy.

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Under Stars" (Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois)	4:25
2.	"The Secret Place" (Daniel Lanois, arranged Brian Eno)	3:27
3.	"Matta" (Brian Eno)	4:14
4.	"Signals" (Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois)	2:44
5.	"An Ending (Ascent)" (Brian Eno)	4:18
6.	"Under Stars II" (Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois)	3:15
7.	"Drift" (Roger Eno, Brian Eno)	3:03
8.	"Silver Morning" (Daniel Lanois)	2:35
9.	"Deep Blue Day" (Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Roger Eno)	3:53
10.	"Weightless" (Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Roger Eno)	4:28
11.	"Always Returning" (Brian Eno, Roger Eno)	3:49
12.	"Stars" (Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois)	7:57

Credits

• Musicians: Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Roger Eno
• Cover Art : Russel Mills
• Mastered by Greg Calbi, at Sterling Sound

Versions

Country	Release Date	Music Label	Media	Catalogue Number	Notes
Netherlands	1983	Editions EG	LP	813 535-1
US	1983	EG Records	LP	EGLP 53
US	1983	Caroline	CD	0 1704-61514-2 9
UK	1983	Virgin	CD	0777 7 86778 2 6
UK	1986	EG Records	CD	EGCD 53
UK	2005	Virgin	CD	7243 5 63647 2 1
Europe	2005	Virgin	CD	ENOCD 10	Remastered
US	1983	Editions EG	11 x LP	EGBS 2	Working Backwards 1983-1973 (Box set)

Chart performance

Chart (1983)	Peak position
New Zealand Albums Chart	48

Uses in other media

• "An Ending (Ascent)":
  • TV - James May on the Moon - opening sequence
  • TV - Chris Morris's surreal TV comedy series Jam
  • TV - American drama Nip/Tuck, in numerous episodes.
  • TV - Ouroboros, an episode of the British comedy series Red Dwarf
  • TV - Top Gear (Series 7 Episode 3), as the presenters drove supercars to the Millau Viaduct
  • TV - Top Gear (Series 13 Episode 7), during the final sequence of the series and closing credits as Jeremy drives the Aston Martin Vantage V12
  • TV - Dan Cruickshank's documentary Cruickshank on Kew: The Garden That Changed the World
  • TV - 2010 Party political broadcast by the Liberal Democrats for the United Kingdom general election, 2010
  • TV - Home, the final episode of the British comedy/drama series Love Soup
  • TV advertisement - for the PlayStation 3
  • TV advertisement - for the NSPCC
  • Liberal Democrat party political broadcast
  • Film soundtrack - Drive (2011)
  • Film soundtrack - Traffic (2000)
  • Film soundtrack - Ghosts of Cité Soleil (2006)
  • Film soundtrack - 28 Days Later (2002)
  • Film soundtrack - Clean (2004)
  • Game soundtrack - Thief II: The Metal Age, Mission "Trail of Blood"
  • Cover - Arturo Stalteri, on his 2001 album Cool August Moon
  • Cartoon - David Firth's cartoon Milkman.
  • Sample - Used in Frou Frou's song "Hear Me Out" from the album Details
  • Sample - Used in Burial's song "Forgive" from the album Burial
  • Portion - The song was used by Coldplay in the lead up to the beginning of the first song, Politik, whenever they played live on their A Rush of Blood to the Head Tour. The tune cut out the moment Politik began.
  • Radio - This American Life - Used in the episode "Prom" broadcast April 29, 2011

• "Deep Blue Day":
  • Film soundtrack - Trainspotting
  • TV - Chris Morris's surreal TV comedy series Jam
  • The British shoegazing band Slowdive, on whose 1993 album Souvlaki Eno made two contributions, used it to open some of their live concerts
  • TV - Nokia advertisement for one of their mobile phones filmed in Blackpool.