Here’s one of those special Record Store Day products that’s definitely worth a listen. Full disclosure, I still have not made a Record Store Day purchase. This lengthy track was released as one side of a so-called double-A-sided 12-inch single. It comes of a collaboration between ambient meister Brian Eno and My Bloody Valentine principal Kevin Shields, an association that feels so natural it also feels overdue for 2018. The other side of the 12-inch, “Only Once Away My Son,” was recorded in 2017, but that’s not much better. As a dirge, “The Weight of History” feels haunted, with foghorn bottoms, unexpected crackling textures, winsome melody, and moaning. In many ways it seems most like just another artifact in Eno’s ambient gallery. But if there’s one thing Eno is good at (and actually there are many) it’s collaborating. Shields and MBV had a reputation for making the loudest music anyone had ever heard in concert, and the albums were decked out with dense layers of feedback and other churning, vibrating noise as setting for delicate melodies. Eno provides the gently lilting tape loops here while Shields works his gentled tremolo-based distortions. Google AI, which sounds like a fan, lets it rip (sourced to Wikipedia and GuitarGangsters.net): “Shields scales back the aggressive, wall-shaking volume of My Bloody Valentine in favor of micro-textured ambient architecture. He swaps explosive distortion for subtle, process-driven soundfields that lock into Brian Eno's generative and tape-loop aesthetics.... Instead of aggressive whammy-bar chord sweeps, Shields applies his signature pitch-bending tremolo control to sustain string whines and single-note drones, keeping the pitch gently drifting and ‘out of tune’ by micro-intervals.” All I can add is: Yup. No wonder people get hooked on using our future robot overlords to help write.
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