By the time he was 75 years old, Brian Eno had more than a couple generations of musicians who’d been influenced by his work. One such person was Fred Gibson, also known as Fred again.. (with two periods), a DJ and producer who worked with Eno on his collaborations with Karl Hyde. While keeping eyes and ears on each other since, the Covid pandemic gave them a chance to collaborate fully and at their own pace. Secret Life is mostly an ambient album, in that it has little to no tempo and relies mostly on muted electric pianos and other keyboards. But Fred does provide vocals, equally inspired by those of his older partner. His other trick is to interpolate other people’s songs—as he does on “Secret”, from a Leonard Cohen song, and John Prine on two others—and sample vocals from a variety of sources. Those contributors are acknowledged in the same list as the other engineers and producers.
For the most part the album floats along, but “Enough” and “Trying” have more prominent vocals and energetic backing melodies that refuse to stay in the background, particularly when the static is mixed up. What little percussion the album has comes from the sampled voices. There’s so much Fred here it’s not clear what Eno brought to the table, but that was probably the point.
Fred again.. Brian Eno Secret Life (2023)—3
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