Obscure records

Now here's a curious tale from nearly fifty years ago. Brian Eno had started off his popular musical career as the keyboard player (of sorts) with Roxy Music, leaving after just two albums with them.

He was only a couple of releases into what at the time looked to be a fairly unpromising solo career, when somehow he convinced Island Records to give him his own label, Obscure Records. 

Between 1975 and 1978, the label released ten albums featuring an interesting combination of artists, some of whom would become household names (in my household, anyway): Michael Nyman; Gavin Bryars; John Cage; The Penguin Café Orchestra; Harold Budd, and Eno himself.

Those albums have just been released as a boxed set, which is wildly overpriced, but, of course, I have bought it. It is one hell of a collection and I take my hat of to Eno for curating it.