Michael Brook » Works » Solo » Hybrid

Hybrid (1985, Editions EG) Hybrid Distant Village Mimosa Pond Life Ocean Motion Midday Earth Floor Vacant

Michael Brook’s first solo album was the summation of two years spent composing and recording in the mid-’80s.. Hybrid materialized during a busy time in Michael’s life, one of transition and redirection. While still administering the artist-access studio Charles St. Video in his native Toronto, Michael helped Brian Eno prepare a series of environmental video-based installations, which the two subsequently installed in art museums around the world. Messrs.Brook & Eno would, on occasion, play in tandem with the video shows. In return for Michael’s technological expertise, Brian offered to help with the solo recordings that would yield Hybrid.

Sessions begun in Michael’s basement 8-track studio (The Crypt, located in Toronto’s Chinatown) migrated to 24-tracks within Daniel Lanois’ Grant Avenue facility in nearby Hamilton. Michael was well familiar with the Lanois studio, having recorded there previously with Jon Hassell, as well as for the sessions that produced Eno’s On Land. Lanois also ended up playing on Hybrid. Michael recalls the Hybrid sessions as a ‘thrilling time that involved much banging of my head against the wall,’ this being his first attempt at working in a proper studio, ‘having access to the sort of signal processing that people now have in their Palm Pilots.’ It was also the premier manifestation of what would become Michael’s sonic thumbprint: spiraling, Indian-inflected melodies articulated by his invention, the Infinite Guitar.

Michael played only one live date in immediate support of Hybrid, a U.K. concert at the Riverside Theatre, co-billed with Roger Eno. The show may have done little to stimulate album sales, but it was the genesis of the Opal Evenings package tour; in this format, Michael would share stages around the world with Roger Eno, mystical hammer dulcimer player Laraaji and Californian composer/pianist Harold Budd.