Brian Eno With Kevin Shields – “The Weight Of History”

Brian Eno With Kevin Shields – “The Weight Of History”

Veteran sonic visionaries Brian Eno and Kevin Shields, two giants of perspective-altering modern music production, teamed up for a single called “Only Once Away My Son” last year. They’ve just followed it with a new one called “The Weight Of History,” which was released Saturday as a Record Store Day exclusive with the prior track as its B-side.

“The Weight Of History” has made its way online, and in keeping with “Only Once Away My Son,” it finds Eno and Shields exploring dark caverns of sound. It’s an ambient dirge of sorts, but one with lots of attention to detail that turns the whole extended listen into something you can engage with just as easily as zone out. Eno’s work with David Byrne comes to mind — the later tracks on Talking Heads’ Remain In Light, for instance — but this is far more shapeless and droning than those tracks, while relied heavily on rhythm. What they have in common is their shadowy aesthetic and mood.

Shields built his legend on My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, but this new track actually sounds like the absence of love — think ominous monk chants in some cathedral at the fringes of reality. Listen to “The Weight Of History” below.

“The Weight Of History” b/w “Only Once Away My Son” is out now on Opal Records.

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