Brian Eno revives Opal Records while questioning who controls AI

Brian Eno is relaunching his Opal Records label on Friday, returning a company that had been dormant for more than three decades with new editions of two albums that had become difficult to find outside Japan. The initial releases are “Another Day on Earth,” from 2005, and “Drawn From Life,” a 2001 collaboration with J. Peter Schwalm. Both are scheduled for release Oct. 16 on CD, vinyl and digital formats, with a rare bonus track on each edition that was absent from the original release. One percent of Opal sales proceeds will go to Earth Percent. Eno told the Associated Press that the decision to revive the label arose because the two records had effectively disappeared. They had been unavailable outside Japan for close to 20 years. “Another Day on Earth” marked his return to song after more than a decade focused on ambient music and production work, while “Drawn From Life” included guest contributions from Holger Czukay and Laurie Anderson, among others. Opal was founded in 1988 and placed on hiatus in 1991. Its catalogue included releases by Eno, John Cale, Jon Hassell, Laraaji, Harold Budd, Roger Eno, Daniel Lanois and others. The label’s catalogue moved to All Saints Records after the hiatus, and Opal did not sign another artist, although it occasionally released Record Store Day exclusives. The relaunch has also been accompanied by two previously unreleased performance videos from 2001, for “Caught Between” and “Persis.” Eno has described Opal as “a label for outsiders,” aimed at artists distinct from both one another and the modern musical mainstream. He is considering a 12-album collection of previously unreleased material through Opal. Much of that music, he said, is utilitarian work intended to establish an atmosphere for everyday activities such as reading or cleaning. That approach remains associated with “Music for Airports,” which Eno said still sells 48 years after release and “could have been made today” because its stripped-back sound carries few obvious markers of a particular era. In the same interview, Eno said he was interested in creative work with artificial intelligence while sharply questioning its ownership and governance. “My problem with AI is the ownership of it and what I know are the moral and social values of the people who own it,” he said. He argued that profit-driven competition can lead companies to focus on defeating rivals rather than serving the world’s interests. Eno called the present situation around powerful agentic AI systems “a real failure of regulation,” saying they are too powerful for people, including their creators, to fully understand. He also stressed the importance of public involvement while a technology is still emerging. The U.S. Copyright Office began an AI initiative in early 2023 that has considered, among other questions, copyright in AI-generated works and the use of copyrighted materials to train AI systems. Its August 2023 notice of inquiry drew more than 10,000 comments by that December.