APOLLO

An invitation to score Al Reinert's film of the Apollo Mission's lunar landing provided Eno with the "opportunity to explore the feelings of space travel." APOLLO is "one small step?" for Eno, here working both within and beyond the conceptual confines of his Ambient series. The disc's dozen gorgeous, evocative miniatures see Eno's first collaborative work with producer/guitarist Daniel Lanois--a collaborator who would prove central to many of Eno's subsequent projects--and with his own brother, pianist Roger Eno. APOLLO contains some of Eno's most carefully crafted melodies, wrought impressionistically in limpid, quicksilver synth and gilded with Lanois's liquid guitar lines. "Matta" and "Under Stars II" imagine the wonders of weightlessness and zero-gravity drift. Lanois's "Silver Morning" views the dawn's smoldering glow from above, while the golden rays of "Deep Blue Day" strain to break at the planet's horizon. "An Ending (Ascent)" watches tearfully from the heavens as a tiny blue Earth falls away into the cradling arms of space; "Always Returning" welcomes the sight of terra firma's green expanses; and the twinkling "Stars" casts its eyes heavenward with a new sense of respect and homesick longing. An ambient masterpiece.