National Sawdust presents Roger Eno with ACME on Friday, March 29th and Saturday, March 30th at 7:30pm.

Roger Eno is a British composer and musician whose distinctive style as a recording artist has attracted a cult following. In 2020, at the start of the global pandemic he made his debut on Deutsche Grammophon with Mixing Colours, his first duo album with his brother, Brian. During this turbulent period, the album garnered much praise, with The Observer noting that “Its slowly unspooling, generative beauty feels like a balm for these anxious times”. His debut solo album on DG, The Turning Year was released in April 2022, at times featuring a 20-piece string ensemble and clarinetist. Critically well received, in May 2022 he was asked to appear on NPR’s Tiny Desk series.

After The Turning Year, Roger went on to release Rarities, an illuminating EP of unreleased tracks and gems from the album session. As well as this he also released "Above and Below", a track that became an Amazon streaming success with 20 million plays to date.

Eno was born in the Suffolk market town of Woodbridge. He became immersed in music at school and bought a battered upright piano with money earned every Saturday as a butcher’s boy. His musical education continued at Colchester Institute School of Music. After a brief interlude playing jazz piano in private clubs in London, he returned to East Anglia.

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As well as first collaborating with his brother Brian and Daniel Lanois in 1983 on Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, he has made over a dozen solo albums and other collaborative pieces with the likes of Peter Hammill, The Orb and his first “band”, the ambient supergroup Channel Light Vessel, whose line-up included Laraaji, Kate St. John, Bill Nelson and Japanese cellist Mayumi Tachibana. He’s also teamed up as a session musician and band member with artists as diverse as The Orb, Lou Reed, Jarvis Cocker and Beck, and not to mention his three-year stint as Musical Director for Tim Robbins and his band, The Rogues Gallery.

Known as a solo composer in both theatre and film, Roger scored Trevor Nunn’s highly acclaimed production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal at London’s National Theatre and, more recently, Nick Hornby’s Emmy winning TV series State of the Union directed by Stephen Frears. Most recently he composed the soundtrack to the Erica Jong documentary, Breaking the Wall.

Roger Eno lives in a small town on the border of Suffolk and Norfolk. Those two rural counties, with their quiet lanes, medieval churches and waterways, have given focus and intensity to the natural introspection of his music. He has described his creative process as one of “decomposing”- improvising in his studio early in the morning to later strip away all excess from the result to reveal the essence of the piece. His approach to the world has been likened to that of a visitor to a flea market, that nothing should be ignored, that the curious can be all too easily overlooked…

Roger’s sophomore album on DG is entitled the skies, they shift like chords, and is a quietly startling follow up to The Turning Year. It features solo piano tracks, multi-instrumental piece and electronic enhancement. The first track, "Strangely, I Dreamt" involves a stunning appearance on vocals by his daughter, Cecily. the skies, they shift like chords is out 13th October worldwide physical and digital apart from in the US where the vinyl will arrive on the 17th November.

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