So, in 1988, she descended 14 feet beneath the earth, into a cistern located in Washington where sounds reverberated up to 45 seconds in the dampness. Pauline Oliveros has called improvisation the natural state of human existence-because, amidst even all the surface chaos of everyday experience, “the universe is improvising.and we have evolution, so is always happening.” It’s why, to Oliveros, the most considerate way to live is to listen. Listen: Robert Fripp & Brian Eno, “Wind on Water”

Rather than co-mingle the two, Fripp and Eno split them like some kind of fork in the road. It stands in stark contrast to the rest of the 1970s, when others made ambient music that felt allegorically about life and death, the two locked in some eternal competition. It’s less playful than the first half, and more shocking. But the second side, the almost 30-minute track, “An Index of Metals,” shows the sinister side of the duo, with less synthesizer bounce and more iciness. That welcomeness owes much to King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp’s warm noodling and plucking he’s like a wedding musician if the whole world was getting married.Įvening Star, which opens with the National Geographic-esque titled “Wind on Water,” maintains its ebullient tone throughout its first half. Though it contains Brian Eno’s signature lolling synthesizers, Evening Star, more than much of his ambient work, has a feeling of induction.

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