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Originally issued between 1975 and 1978, nearly 50 years on the output of Obscure remains radically forward-thinking - offering glimpses of a future yet to be fully seen and amounts to one of the most important, influential, and creatively accomplished album series ever conceived.
Co-curated by Eno and the composers Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman - issuing the recording debuts of Bryars, Nyman, John Adams, Christopher Hobbs, David Toop, Max Eastley, Jan Steele, Simon Jeffes / The Penguin Café Orchestra, and Harold Budd, in addition to important works by John Cage, Tom Phillips, and John White - Obscure’s collective output is a groundbreaking landmark in the histories of Minimalism, modern composition, and Experimental music, and laid much of the groundwork for the soon to emerge movement of Ambient music.
Illuminating the remarkable, and largely otherwise undocumented, creative ferment within and between the British and American scenes of experimental music during the mid to late 1970s, this collection - made in full collaboration with all of the composers or their estates - contains the entire 10 album output of Obscure, the majority of which have been out of print for years, with a number having never received a CD reissue.
Offering each of Obscure’s albums, completely remastered and housed in faithful replicas of their original covers and liner notes, as well as a 130-page booklet for CD-BOX SET and 80-page book (LP dimension) for LP-BOX SET, filled with rare photos, archival material and texts by - among others - Gavin Bryars, Bradford Bailey, David Toop, Max Eastley, Richard Bernas, and Tom Recchion, this historic collection marks the first time this seminal series has received a complete CD and LP repress.
INCLUDING
Gavin Bryars’ “The Sinking of the Titanic” (1975)
Christopher Hobbs, John Adams, and Gavin Bryars’ “Ensemble Pieces” (1975)
Brian Eno’s “Discreet Music” (1975)
David Toop and Max Eastley’s “New and Rediscovered Musical Instrument” (1975)
Jan Steele and John Cage’s “Voices and Instruments” (1976)
Michael Nyman’s “Decay Music” (1976)
Simon Jeffes / The Penguin Café Orchestra’s “Music from The Penguin Café” (1976)
John White and Gavin Bryars’ “Machine Music” (1978)
Tom Phillips, Gavin Bryars, and Fred Orton’s “Irma” (1978)
Harold Budd’s “The Pavilion of Dreams” (1978)