Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Roger Eno

condition (record/cover): EX / EX-

Commissioned for Al Reinert's documentary project that would become For All Mankind, built around original 16mm footage shot by the Apollo astronauts themselves, Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks (1983) is the record where Brian Eno brought in his brother Roger Eno (then twenty-three, an organist and composer in his own right) and Daniel Lanois to widen the palette beyond his solo work. Lanois plays guitar and adds harmonic warmth. Roger Eno plays grand piano and DX7. Brian Eno orchestrates everything around them, treating their playing through long tape delays and synthesizer beds.

The record splits cleanly. The "Atmospheres" side contains the spacious, drifting tracks: "Under Stars", "The Secret Place", "An Ending (Ascent)", which has since become one of the most-licensed pieces of music in film and television history. The "Soundtracks" side contains four country-and-western-inflected pieces with Lanois on pedal steel ("Silver Morning", "Always Returning", "Stars"), Eno's nod to the surprising fact that the astronauts had often listened to country music in orbit. The juxtaposition (vastness above, the smallest of human voices below) is the record's whole argument.

The original vintage EG Records pressing of 813 535-1, distributed in Europe by Polydor. Apollo is the album where Eno fully integrated Lanois's presence into his own studio language, the step that would make The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree and the entire late-1980s U2 sound possible. A pivot record, both for Eno and for the wider field of cinematic ambient music.