Before and After Eno: Situating ‘The Recording Studio as Compositional Tool

Abstract

This chapter discusses Eno's work and lecture - Studio as a Compositional Tool. As previous studies have identified the importance of John Cage and post-Cageian experimental music for Eno, this study extends the flows of influence and counter-influence back to the second decade of the twentieth century, and situates Eno's Studio as a Compositional Tool lecture in the long history of twentieth century avant-garde and modernist debates concerning the future of music and the potential recording technologies afford. Therefore, the fundamental purpose of this study is to contextualise and situate the lecture in a way that has not been attempted previously. This will allow a broader understanding of ‘The Recording Studio as Compositional Tool’ as a dialogic, heteroglossic text that is in conversation with and channels the voices of others who, in the previous seven decades, had already considered and formulated responses to issues that Eno addressed at the end of the 1970s.