Production
Unlike Eno's previous albums which were recorded in a very short time, Before and After Science was two years in the making. During this two-year period, Eno was busy working on his solo ambient music albums Music for Films and Discreet Music. Due to the very positive critical reception to his previous rock music-oriented album Another Green World, Eno was afraid of repeating himself but still wanted to release a high quality product.
Like his previous rock-based recordings, Eno used a plethora of guest musicians on Before and After Science. Several artists from German and British groups of the era contributed to the album, collaborating with Eno for the first time. Guitarist Fred Frith caught the attention of Brian Eno who was "excited by the timbral possibilities that been discovering" on his album Guitar Solos. Eno asked Frith to record with him, and this resulted in Frith playing guitar on the album. Jaki Liebezeit of the German krautrock group Can played drums for Eno on "Backwater" while German ambient music group Cluster contributed to the songwriting and instrumentation of the track "By This River". Eno had previously worked with Cluster on their album Cluster & Eno released in 1977. Additional session musicians included Dave Mattacks of British folk band Fairport Convention who contributed drums to "Kurt's Rejoinder" and "Here He Comes" and Andy Fraser of British blues-rock band Free who played drums on "King's Lead Hat".
Eno also had several musicians who he had worked with on previous solo albums return. Percy Jones of Brand X and Phil Collins of Brand X and Genesis, who had been on Eno's two previous rock albums, played bass and drums respectively. Other contributors included Robert Fripp of King Crimson, Paul Rudolph of Hawkwind and Bill MacCormick and Phil Manzanera of Quiet Sun. Robert Wyatt went under the pseudonym of Shirley Williams and is credited on the album for "time" and "brush timbales" on "Through Hollow Lands" and "Kurt's Rejoinder" respectively. Working extensively with the musicians and his instructional cards–the Oblique Strategies–during the two years working on the album, Eno wrote over one hundred songs.
Read more about this topic: Before And After Science
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