Brian Eno’s New Turntable Is A Vivid Celebration Of Ambient Sound
The legendary producer of U2, Coldplay and Talking Heads released a $25,000 turntable that’s an aural work of art.
Brian Eno’s career contains multitudes, whether as a solo artist or legendary music producer, and it follows that he knows a thing or two about immersive audio. His new turntable, the Brian Eno Turntable II, brings it all together in impressive fashion, using shifting light in a nod to Eno’s soundscape experiments.
It’s the second such turntable released by Eno in the luxury audio category, who previously debuted another experimental record player in 2022.
The turntable, crafted from acrylic LED lights, changes color when played, a nod to Eno’s “colorscapes,” using hues of blue, orange, green and red, shifting slowly over time in a pre-programmed, eye-catching manner.
Currently on display at the Paul Stolper Gallery in London, only 150 of the shape-shifting turntable will be sold globally (and at $25,000 each), so the experiment is a rather covetable one.
The limited-edition record player spotlights Eno’s passion for advanced audio, as the pioneering ambient and electronica musician broke new ground in the category, first as part of Roxy Music and then as a solo artist and high-profile producer for the likes of U2, Talking Heads, Coldplay, Devo and Laurie Anderson.
Eno also experimented with light and music hand in hand, using one to inform the other, and vice versa. The record player itself, when not in use, also acts as a striking design feature for the lucky few who might be able to secure one.
As to the record player itself, Eno told the Paul Stolper Gallery that “it’s the softness of these colors and the way they merge with each other that is so seductive.”
Eno also looked at the design of the record player in a similar light to his experiments as a painter, looking at the shifting colors of the turntable as a cycle.
“Several overlapping light cycles will keep producing different color balances and blends, and different shadow formations that slowly evolve and never exactly repeat. The process is simple. The results are complex,” Eno said.
Each record player, accordingly, is finished with Eno’s signature and a limited-edition number, further adding to its exclusive nature.
Listening to music will never quite be the same for the lucky few who manage to outfit a listening room with the truly unique Brian Eno Turntable II.
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