Musician and artist Brian Eno has released a new edition of a custom-designed turntable that is as much an artwork as a device for playing music.
“When it doesn’t have to do anything in particular, like play a record, it’s a sculpture,” said the artist.
The turntable features a round base, echoing the shape of the platter; the two parts light up and transition among various colors independently of each other, creating what the artist calls “generative ‘colorscapes.’” The first edition of the turntable, produced in 2021, inspired the stage set for U2’s recent shows at the Sphere, in Las Vegas.
“It’s the softness of these colors and the way they merge with each other that is so seductive,” said Eno.
Turntable II is available for £20,000 (about $25,000) through London’s Paul Stolper Gallery, where it’s currently on view, and exists in an edition of 150 worldwide. The price will increase as the gallery sells through the edition.
The record player is an apt medium for an artist who has long been interested in the meeting of musical and visual arts. “I’ve been trying to slow music down so it became more like painting, and to animate paintings so that they became more like music… in the hope that the two would fuse in the middle,” he has said. He has exhibited his visual art at venues including the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts in the U.K. and the Lyon Biennale in France.
Brian Eno, Turntable II (2024). Courtesy Paul Stolper Gallery. Photo: Luke Walker.
Eno got his start with the band Roxy Music in 1971, but soon left to record solo albums, coining the term “ambient music” (a genre he said “must be as ignorable as it is interesting”) to describe his work on releases like Music for Airports (1978). He has collaborated with musicians like David Bowie and Robert Fripp, and produced the likes of John Cale and the Talking Heads.
For those interested in the technical information, the white tonearm is manufactured by Pro-Ject Audio Systems, and the turntable comes with an Ortofon cartridge. It plays both 33 and 45 rpm records and comes with gold-plated RCA connectors.
Turntable II is on view at Paul Stolper Gallery, 31 Museum St, London, through March 9, 2024.