Roger Eno Announces New Album - Without Wind / Without Air

Credit: IFUCKTOKYO

Roger Eno Announces His Third Solo DG Album

Without Wind / Without Air – Out 31 October

Reflecting on the joys, sorrows and transience of life and love,

Without Wind / Without Air presents 12 tracks for solo piano or orchestral ensemble

Vocals come from Grace Davidson, Cecily Eno, Lotti Eno and Roger Eno himself

“a beautiful reflection on the here, the now, and an uncertain future”

The Line of Best Fit, on the skies, they shift like chords

“a remarkable release that unsettles with haunting lines and

simultaneously makes one tingle with warmth at a display of beauty”

Spectrum Culture, on the skies, they shift like chords

British composer and multi-instrumentalist Roger Eno has recorded Without Wind / Without Air, his third solo album for Deutsche Grammophon. Following on from the success of The Turning Year (2022) and the skies, they shift like chords (2023), the new album includes both solo piano pieces and tracks orchestrated for various combinations of clarinet, guitar, bass, strings, synths, percussion and electronics. There are guest vocal appearances from soprano Grace Davidson and Roger’s daughters Cecily Eno and Lotti Eno, with Roger himself singing on The Moon And The Sea. Jonathan Stockhammer conducts the Scoring Berlin strings on three tracks, while Eno’s friend and producer Christian Badzura arranged and plays on several tracks as well as having co-written the opening and closing numbers, Forgiveness and After Rain.

Without Wind / Without Air will be released digitally and on vinyl on 31 October 2025. A first digital single, Forgiveness, will be shared on 5 September, with Alembic Distillation out on 19 September and There Was A Ship on 10 October. A limited-edition LP version includes a signed artcard of an image created by Roger Eno. Though abstract in origin, an experiment with pen and ink, it suggests insects in flight or mayflies dancing above water. The mayfly, long a symbol for the brevity of life, also features on the album cover, designed by Cecily Eno.

The album title comes from the lyrics of Doubled by the Sun, by Italian band The Doubling Riders. “My friend Pier Luigi Andreoni and I worked on various projects together in Italy in the 1990s,” says Eno. “He kindly gave me permission to use this line, which has a wonder-filled, late-summer atmosphere of almost motionlessness and peace.”

The sheer poetry of the lyric was enough for him at first, but has recently taken on a new meaning, as he explains: “I was forced to look at the fragility of species and climate, and their dependence on ‘turns of chance’ and carelessness. This alters ‘without wind, without air’ into a warning, a vision of a terribly bleak future – if any future at all.”

That shift of meaning is audible in the dissonances of the title track, which call to mind an impending storm. Roger’s subtle, slowly moving piano line is joined by the dark sounds of low strings, synths and electronics; high, wordless vocals from Grace Davidson; and the piercing wail of Alexander Glücksmann’s clarinet. There is a similar feel to The Final Year Of Blossom, again featuring the pure tones of Davidson’s voice, a track inspired by the fear that one day the Japanese cherry trees will fail to bloom.

Happier days are conjured by There Was A Ship, a folk ballad about reunited lovers, sung by Cecily Eno. She performed this song with both her father and her uncle in the amphitheatre of Herodes Atticus in Athens, as part of the acclaimed and first-ever joint concert given by Roger and Brian Eno (available to stream on STAGE+). In There Was A Ship’s mournful counterpart, The Moon And The Sea, Roger tells a tale of unrequited love – his poignant vocal line was captured in one take.

Without Wind / Without Air is punctuated by three magical tracks for Roger’s solo piano. Spell offers another folk-influenced flowing melody, in contrast to the more classical Alembic Distillation, with its echoes of the keyboard music of Bach and Scarlatti, while the softly resonating Saudade (“Nostalgia”) lives long in the memory.