Right Place, Right Time (original) (raw)

Early on, after dabbling in photography, Canadian producer and performer Michael Brook also explored electronic music and electronics and psychology in the arts, when a fortuitous meeting with trumpeter and minimalist Jon Hassell led to a tour and an introduction to Lamonte Young, through whom he studied Indian music.

Working as a house engineer for another famed producer, Daniel Lanois, saw Brook achieving Canadian fame in the late seventies with pop band Martha and The Muffins, and hooking up with the likes of Brian Eno. A quid pro quo situation evolved - Brook helped Eno make videos and Eno helped Brook make music. After credits on the former's 1982 'Onland' album, and Hassell's 'Magic Realism' in 1983, Brook - with Eno and Lanois on board - released the solo, seminal 'Hybrid' in 1985 which, even in these days of ambient ubiquity, is still lauded as one of the great ethnic/ambient works of the mid eighties.

'Cobalt Blue', released on 4AD, followed, with 'Live At The London Aquarium' - recorded at the press launch of 'Cobalt Blue' at London Zoo aquarium - hot on its heels. During the late eighties, Brook continued his mixed-media collaborations with Eno, developing video sculptures and sound installations in Italy, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Holland, Japan, Australia and the USA.

Aside from significant world music credits, there's been producing stints for Roger Eno, Pieter Nooten, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Balloon and The Pogues. In 1991, Brook guested with David Sylvian's Rain Tree Crow on a one-off album, and on Brian Ferry's 'Taxi'. As a solo artist, he opened for John Cale on the latter's Europe and Stateside tour in 1992; in 1993 he joined Robert Fripp and David Sylvian on their Road to Graceland World Tour, where he performed solo as a special guest to open the show, before joining Sylvian and Fripp as a band member for the main set. Then there's those Real World recordings with U. Srinivas and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Michael Brook: polymath or what?