Enophonic Celebrates The Music Of Musician And Composer Brian Eno

In the early 1950s, Alan Turing—the father of modern-day computing and the subject of the Oscar-winning 2014 film “The Imitation Game,” about his successful efforts to break the Nazi Enigma code—created the first electronic musical notes generated by a computer. The first “songs” to emanate out of Turing’s primitive computing machine were the British royal anthem “God Save the King” and Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood”—without the swing factor, mind you.

In the late ’60s and early ’70s, a virtual hotbed of experimental “computer” music was embraced by a new generation of musicians in direct response to the invention of the Moog synthesizer, which was the brainchild of New York inventor Robert Moog.

Since then, the blending of acoustic instruments and computer-generated sounds, such as keyboards, synthesizers and sampling, has become ubiquitous across a large swath of contemporary musical genres.

One of the leading figures to embrace this new technology from its inception was Brian Eno. Eno might not be a household name, but he has a prolific body of solo work; was the original keyboardist for the British rock band Roxy Music; has produced albums by U2, Talking Heads, Devo and Coldplay; and was responsible for creating the iconic Windows 95 operating system startup music, which he composed on a Mac.

In celebration of all things Eno, Carlos Lama, the manager and self-proclaimed “impresario” at Innersleeve Records in Amagansett, has co-created an Eno cover band with local musician Randy Hudson. It’s called Enophonic, and it’s a passionate collaboration that has been in the making for years.

“Growing up, my father had an album called ‘Everything You Always Wanted to Hear on the Moog* *but were afraid to ask,’” Mr. Lama said with a broad laugh. “The album was all Spanish classical music. One side had Ravel’s ‘Bolero,’ and it’s astounding to listen to, because it was all done with early Moogs, which at the time were huge switchboard banks of electronics with patch cords, and you could create only one sound at a time; it wasn’t polyphonic at all.”

In the early ’70s, German bands like Neu, Can, Faust, and Kraftwerk took electronic music to a new level. “Eno was a contemporary of those bands—labeled ‘Krautrock’—and he eventually left Roxy Music because he wanted to be more experimental with the pop-rock form,” Mr. Lama said.

Eno’s first solo album, “Here Come the Warm Jets,” was a deconstruction of pop music, re-creating the idea of the pop “hook” and playing around with the “cut-up technique” lyric-wise that writer William Burroughs popularized in the late 1950s. “David Bowie—who Eno has worked with—was doing the same thing at the time with the cut-up-technique: a method of taking strips of words, or lyrics and rearranging them to create a new context, or verse. Eno was basically challenging the pop music ethos.”

Mr. Hudson, the Enophonic guitarist, said Eno is primarily known for the manipulation of sound, especially with the use of synthesizers. “If you listen to some of Roxy Music’s early stuff the guitar sounds are just so wild,” he said. “That’s because Eno put it through a synthesizer, and that was a very attractive element in what would become ‘art’ rock for many bands at the time.”

For Eno enthusiasts, his voice is just as recognizable as the emotionality he brings to producing and composing music with other bands. “‘Once in a Lifetime’ by the Talking Heads—off their album ‘Remain in Light’ that Eno produced—he’s doing the backup vocals on that song, which he co-wrote with the band, and when I first heard that song back in the ’80s, I was, like, ‘Hey, that’s Eno!’” Mr. Hudson recalled.

Why does Eno matter? “His melodies and voice tend to go up against a nontraditional background, so that kind of sonic juxtaposition gives Eno his sound. For me, it’s what I call ‘complex primitive,’” Mr. Hudson said with an exuberant laugh. “Eno’s had such a substantial influence on music from the ’70s onward, and he’s been at the core of some of the most popular music ever made.”

Bowie’s “Heroes” is an example. “It’s probably one of the most iconic songs of the 20th century, and who was right there smack-dab in the middle of it all? Eno! Which he co-wrote with Bowie. Eno has always pulled from an eclectic well of music and artistic richness,” Mr. Hudson said.

Other local musicians that fill out Enophonic are Paul Chapin on bass and Bob Golden on drums—who brought in his friend Lisa Maxwell, on saxophone, who has toured with Guns & Roses and a slew of other artists.

Some of Eno’s songs that will be performed at their upcoming gigs include “Third Uncle,” “Cindy Tells Me,” “Kings Lead Hat,” “No One Receiving” and probably Eno’s best-known song, “Baby’s on Fire.”

When asked about the importance of a vinyl record shop in the 21st century, Mr. Lama said, tongue firmly in cheek, “I consider Innersleeve Records to be an analog oasis in a sea of digital noise.”

For information on upcoming shows, follow Enophonic on Facebook.