Brian Eno again!

Hmm, it seems that Brian Eno is circling my world injecting little pieces of brilliance. Not for the first time, I might add.

Brian Eno is one of those people who has not only done some brilliant things in his own right but has also worked with and affected other people whose work I appeciate such as David Byrne, David Bowie and Robert Fripp.

He also works in a number of creative areas.

Over the last 12 months I've come across more and more of his work influencing me. First, it was getting a set of "Oblique Strategy" cards then a copy of his "Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now", then he re-released "77 Million Paintings" with better morphing and better layered sound. then there was his new album with David Byrne, someone made "Oblique Strategies" for the iPhone and he worked on the music of "Spore".

Now he has developed a music application for the iPhone called 'Bloom' that is the most superb tool for creating 'generative music.' Given that he could be considered one of the founders of generative music I guess it's not that surprising.

If you 'play' Bloom the software provides a soft, slightly and slowly varying tone and you play notes by tapping the screen. It appears you can have chords of at least four notes. The notes you tap are repeated after a delay and they too will slowly alter. After a few minutes practice it is possible to create some interesting and original music that would be best described as "ambient". It is almost perfect for playing while you do some creative work if you are one of those (like me) who does not like strong melody and catchy lyrics while working. For a small amount of money this is just great software.