A label “for outsiders” fell silent for over thirty years. Brian Eno is switching it back on

Brian Eno is relaunching his own label, Opal Records, silent for more than three decades. First out are two of his albums that were unavailable for years — both on 16 October.

The label's return was announced in Eno's official shop.

Eno founded Opal back in 1988, and gave it a definition then that has stuck ever since.

“It is a label for outsiders,” Brian Eno said of Opal back in 1988.

Two records that vanished from circulation

The first is Another Day on Earth from 2005, Eno’s first song-based album after a long break. Its licence expired back in 2008, and after that the record could only be bought in Japan. Now it returns with a bonus track and on coloured vinyl.

The second is Drawn From Life from 2001, made together with the German musician J. Peter Schwalm. The rights to it were lost in corporate handovers as EMI changed hands. For the first time it comes out with two names on the cover — Eno and Schwalm, as it really was.

Both recordings were once handed to other labels — Hannibal, Virgin, Astralwerks. Now the rights have returned to Opal, which is exactly why the relaunch starts with them.

Why Eno calls it a gift

In a short essay accompanying the releases, Eno explains where these records came from: both were born in a small windowless room in west London.

“These two albums also return as gifts from the past,” Brian Eno writes.

It was there, he says, that in the nineties he found the place where ambient and rhythmic song-based music meet — territory he is still exploring. So for him the reissues are not nostalgia but a return to an unfinished subject.

The vinyl masters for the reissues were cut at Abbey Road, with distribution handled by The state51 Conspiracy. Each album comes out on CD, black and coloured vinyl, and digitally.

Earlier we told you how Eno’s Music for Airports played in a real airport in Manchester.