Secret Life

Sometimes a record clicks right from the first time you hear it. And sometimes it doesn't, and you lose track of it, never to listen to it ever again.

One such record that almost vanished from my Recently Added screen is Secret Life by Brian Eno and Fred Again... I listened to it once while working, classified it under boring elevator music, and moved on.

Recently, I had a night flight home from Recife (Brazil) to Lisbon. It departed at around midnight and would take over 8 hours. I had a terrible night before, so I desperately needed to sleep.

However, when you really want to sleep, you won't. I also didn't have any good music to fall asleep to. Normally I tend to preload some Sigur Ros or Nils Frahm on my iPhone - but I totally forgot. And IDLES or Taylor Swift really isn't music to fall asleep to.

Except, there was one album. I must've accidentally pressed the button to download it. It was Secret Life.

I thought: well, at least this elevator music would make me fall asleep.

Of course, it didn't.

I listened to Secret Life around ten times on that flight. Sometimes wide awake, sometimes a bit dozed off, never asleep. And it was so beautiful. It finally clicked.

Please listen to it, give it a chance, and if it doesn't click right away, try again—ten times or so. You might just find yourself falling in love with this gem of an album.

Listen to it on Apple Music or Spotify.