Brian Eno
Reflection

The generative version of Reflection is the fourth iOS App created by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers: of generativemusic.com. Unlike other Apps they released Reflection provides no real options other than Play/Pause – later, in its initial update, AirPlay and Sleep Timer options were added. As Apple had started increasing prices for Apps sold in UK, they lowered its price. For those who'd bought the app at a higher price, Eno and Chilvers provided links to a free download of a four track album called 'Sisters' (each track with a 15:14 duration). The following appears on the app's Apple iTunes page:

As a result of the Brexit-related fall in value of the British pound Apple have increased the prices of all apps sold in the UK by 25%. While we always intended REFLECTION to be a premium priced app, we feel this increase makes it too expensive, so we will take the hit in order to keep the British price to the consumer at its original level.

In other territories this decision will translate into a reduced price for the app.

As a thank you to everyone who has supported the REFLECTION app, we are adding a free surprise downloadable gift to it for a limited time. To access it, simply update REFLECTION in the App Store and follow the instructions when you open the app on your device. The download will be available until 28th February. and the App's Apples iTunes page

Previous to the updates for the App, the iTunes page used the following from Eno.

Reflection is the most recent of my Ambient experiments and represents the most sophisticated of them so far.

My original intention with Ambient music was to make endless music, music that would be there as long as you wanted it to be. I wanted also that this music would unfold differently all the time – 'like sitting by a river': it's always the same river, but it's always changing. But recordings – whether vinyl, cassette or CD – are limited in length, and replay identically each time you listen to them. So in the past I was limited to making the systems which make the music, but then recording 30 minutes or an hour and releasing that. Reflection in its album form – on vinyl or CD – is like this. But the app by which Reflection is produced is not restricted: it creates an endless and endlessly changing version of the piece of music.

The creation of a piece of music like this falls into three stages: the first is the selection of sonic materials and a musical mode – a constellation of musical relationships. These are then patterned and explored by a system of algorithms which vary and permutate the initial elements I feed into them, resulting in a constantly morphing stream (or river) of music. The third stage is listening. Once I have the system up and running I spend a long time – many days and weeks in fact – seeing what it does and fine-tuning the materials and sets of rules that run the algorithms. It's a lot like gardening: you plant the seeds and then you keep tending to them until you get a garden you like.

The version of Reflection available on the fixed formats (CD, Vinyl and download File) consists of two (joined) excerpts from the Reflection app. This was revealed in Brian's interview with Philip Sherburne:

Given the infinite nature of the Reflection project, was it difficult to select the 54-minute chunk that became the album?

Yes, it was quite interesting doing that. When you're running it as an ephemeral piece, you have quite different considerations. If there is something that is a bit doubtful or odd, you think, OK, that's just in the nature of the piece and now it's passed and we're somewhere else. Whereas if you're thinking of it as a record that people are going to listen to again and again, what philosophy do you take? Choose just a random amount of time? Could have done that. Just do several of them and fix them together? Is that faking it? These are very interesting philosophical questions.

Which approach did you follow?

A hybrid approach. I generated 11 pieces of the length I'd set the piece to be and I had them all in my iTunes on random shuffle, so I would be listening at night, doing other things, and as one ran through, I would think, That was a nice one, I particularly like the second half. So then I would make a note. I did this for quite a few evenings. There were two that I really liked. On one, the last 40 minutes of it were lovely, and on another, the first 25 minutes of it were really nice. So I thought, This is a studio, I'm making a record. I'll edit them together! It was like the birth of rock'n'roll. I'm allowed to do that! It's not cheating. It was quite a bit of jiggery-pokery to find a place I could do it, but the result is two pieces stuck together.
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