Automatic writing, in fact

NME's Ian MacDonald on how Brian Eno constructed his second solo album Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy:

Back home in London, Eno began to go through hundreds of taped fragments he'd amassed over the previous ten years.

"I called up Phil (Manzanera) and asked him over to help. What actually happened was that I'd have loads of little bits and pieces lying around which I'd give to him to work out what key they were in, etc., and then he'd come back to me and say 'Well, this bit might fit onto the end of that bit', you know? He helped a lot by plastering it together - and also by co-writing 'The True Wheel' which contains the fragment about The 801.

"As soon as I'd made up the shape of the song, I made a plan of it on paper, sketching out all the spaces where I wanted words, and began running through it, just singing whatever came into my head. And every time I hit on a phrase I liked, I'd write it down in its particular place in the framework.

"And gradually I'd arrive at a kind of 'found' document made up of half-obscured fragments -and all I then had to do was fill in the blanks by reconstructing what I thought each lyric was about. Automatic writing, in fact."

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