Album review: Brian Eno, The Ship

Brian Eno’s 25th studio album is best enjoyed by ignoring the artist’s dreary sales pitch. The Ship, Eno has stated, is a rumination on the sinking of the Titanic, the Velvet Underground and the rise of human civilisation as chronicled in Yuval Harari’s pop-science bestseller Sapiens. All of which may incline you to chuck the CD out the window before pausing to even remove it from the slipcase.

Divorced from the blather, however, this is a darkly mesmerising symphony that draws on such diverging sources as Aphex Twin, Dead Can Dance and 17th century sea-shanties. Rendered grave and dusky by age, 67 year-old Eno’s vocals are a dead ringer for those of DCD’s Brendan Perry while the burbling soundscapes he deploys are imbued with an almost overwhelming melancholy.