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VandeGraaffgenerator. The Wimshurst discharged large high-voltage sparks that jumped wildly between its metal plates. Eno issued a challenge to Fripp to play a guitar solo that sounded like the darting sparks of an electrostatic generator; this gelled well with Fripp’s sensibilities, and the end result was incandescent. “Brian has better taste, a more interesting mind and developed sense of play than almost all the musicians I have known,” remarked Fripp. “A good professional musician knows what they’re doing, so they do what they know. This is death to the creative life. So, working with Brian is usually a lot more fun and musically creative than working with good professional players (mastery in musicianship is necessary to go beyond the strictures of professionalism).”
    Many of the songs on
Another Green World
used synthetic percussion—a “rhythm generator” that Eno had treated in various ways to make the machine’s limited palette sound less wonky and more interesting. Several pioneering bands in the early 1970s were using these lumbering analog ancestors to modern drum machines. Sly and the Family Stone recorded
There’s a Riot Goin’ On
with heavy use of these early drum machines. The German group Can’s landmark 1971 album
Tago Mago
also made creative use of rhythm generators, as did Cluster’s 1974 album
Zuckerzeit
.
    Offbeat German bands like Can, Cluster, and Harmonia were major Eno touchstones. Eno would go on to befriend and collaborate with members of all of those bands. But if there was ever an unsung hero in the popular accounts of Eno’s musical development, it was Conny Plank, who died in 1987. Plank was a trailblazing producer and sound engineer in West Germany who worked with several ground-breaking German bands of the 1970s—Kraftwerk, Cluster, and Neu!, for starters. Plank favored a rough, live sound for synths, guitars, and drums, instead of the smoothed-over Velveeta cheese that was popular in the mid-1970s. Plank also built up layers of sonic treatments and stark, disorienting effects that still sound radical to this day.
    “In Dark Trees,” the next track on
Another Green World
, is an ominous cloud of dark ambience, underscored by a foreboding, chugging rhythm, again provided by Eno’s treated symphony of machines. Like many of the other ambient tracks that Eno worked on by himself, “In Dark Trees” was initially inspired by coming across a particular sound. The melody, rhythm, and concept came later. “For me it’s always contingent on getting a sound, the sound always suggests what kind of melody it should be,” explained Eno to Lester Bangs in 1979. “So it’s always sound first and then the line afterwards. That’s why I enjoy working with complicated equipment, because I can just set up a chain of things, like a lot of my things are started with just a rhythm box, but I feed it through so many things that what comes out often sounds very complex and rich, and as soon as I hear a sound it always suggests a mood to me.”
    The next instrumental, the elegiac, meditative “The Big Ship,” is a blend of contrasting textures— organic and synthetic, icy and warm. The backing beats are again provided by Eno’s treated rhythm generator. The song was entirely constructed from synthesizers, but it’s hard to tell; the song has a lush, woody, hymnal feel, like a hundred harmoniums playing at once. A cold, glassy synth melody is layered on top, contrasting with the song’s rich, honey-liketimbres. The trebly synth blips flitting about don’t have a regular pulse; the timing of the loop is distorted slightly, speeding up and down. The electronics don’t feel like they’re moving in rigid lockstep; there’s still a human sense of error to it.
    That wistful, stately instrumental opens the floodgates for the unabashed sentimentalism of “I’ll Come Running,” one of the most storied songs on the album. Paul Kennedy, an avid record collector in New York, recalled