SPILL NEWS: BRIAN ENO RELAUNCHES HIS CULT LABEL OPAL RECORDS + LOST ALBUMS + 2 PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED VIDEOS

BRIAN ENO RELAUNCHES HIS CULT LABEL OPAL RECORDS + LOST ALBUMS + 2 PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED VIDEOS

Opal Records, the label founded by Brian Eno in 1988 as an extension of his artistic world, is returning after more than three decades. Launching with the reissue of two acclaimed and much-loved Eno albums: Another Day on Earth (2005) and his collaboration with J. Peter Schwalm, Drawn From Life (2001) – both unavailable outside of Japan for close to twenty years. New releases are also planned, celebrating the label’s past and forging its future.

TWO PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED LIVE VIDEOS, OUT NOW: To mark the announcement, two previously unreleased live performance videos are out today, one track from each album. “Caught Between” (from Another Day on Earth) – filmed live at Coliseu do Porto, Porto Festival, June 16, 2001. “Persis” from Drawn From Life) – filmed live at Naeba Ski Resort, Fuji Rock Festival, July 29, 2001.

Performers in both videos: Brian Eno, J. Peter Schwalm, Nell Catchpole (violin), Leo Abrahams (guitar), Christoph Buhse (drums), Tim Harries (bass), and Heiko Himmighoffen (percussion).

Opal was never a conventional record label. In its first, brief run between 1988 and 1991, it released albums by Brian Eno, Roger Eno, Harold Budd, Laraaji, Djivan Gasparyan, Hugo Largo, Zvuki Mu, Daniel Lanois, Jon Hassell and John Cale – an alliance of artists who mapped much of what ambient, generative and boundary-crossing music would become. Eno put the label on hiatus in 1991 to concentrate on his own work, and the catalogue moved across to All Saints Records.

DRAWN FROM LIFE / ANOTHER DAY ON EARTH

Another Day on Earth (2005) was Brian Eno’s first song-based album since Nerve Net in 1992, and remains one of his most acclaimed solo records. It featured a young Jon Hopkins alongside long-standing collaborators Nell Catchpole, J. Peter Schwalm and Leo Abrahams, with lyrics co-written by Michel Faber and Danny Hillis. The album was launched with a public conversation between Eno and the writer Michael Bracewell at the Marble Palace in St Petersburg, and its cover photograph was taken by Eno himself in Beijing, during his first Chinese audio installation in the city’s Ritan Park.

The license with Hannibal Records for Another Day on Earth expired in 2008, and the album has been unavailable outside Japan ever since. Its absence has not dimmed its following: the track ‘And Then So Clear’ has racked up more than two million streams on YouTube despite never having an official release, and songs from the album, including ‘And Then So Clear’, ‘Caught Between’, ‘Bottomliners’ and ‘Bonebomb’, have surfaced in Eno’s rare live performances, including alongside his brother Roger at the Acropolis in 2021, with Icebreaker at Brighton Festival in 2010, and with a 45-piece orchestra on the 2023 Ships tour.

The 2026 reissue will be available across all formats for the first time in almost two decades, and includes the previously Japan-only bonus track, “The Demon of the Mines.”

Drawn From Life, originally released on Virgin Records in 2001, was a full collaboration between Brian Eno and J. Peter Schwalm, the two having met through Eno’s longtime friend Rolf Engel. It will carry that joint billing for the first time. The album featured Holger Czukay, Laurie Anderson, Nell Catchpole and Leo Abrahams, and was supported by a tour taking in Porto, Lanzarote and a headline appearance at Japan’s Fuji Rock Festival.

The rights to Drawn From Life reverted to Opal when Citigroup acquired EMI, and the album has not been available since. Eno and Schwalm’s partnership also produced the score to Fear X, an early film from Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Bronson) starring John Turturro and Deborah Kara Unger, and the Japan-only release Music for Onmyo-ji.

The 2026 reissue will be available across all formats and includes the bonus track “Bloom (Instrumental).”

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