Brian Eno relaunches Opal Records and considers a 12-album box set

Brian Eno is reviving his label Opal Records, founded in 1988 and dormant since 1991, and is considering a 12-album box set of unreleased music, according to an interview with Sian Watson of the Associated Press reported by OndaRock. Opal once released music by Jon Hassell, John Cale and Eno himself.

The relaunch starts with reissues of two hard-to-find albums, “Drawn From Life” from 2001 and “Another Day on Earth” from 2005. Eno says he has a great deal of music he composed but never released, much of which fits together well; he calls it functional music, for cleaning the house, reading or anything that needs the right atmosphere.

He also discussed “Music for Airports”, the 1978 album that still sells and that some young listeners take for a new release, because it carries almost none of the sonic markers that date a record. On artificial intelligence, he is fascinated by working with it but objects to who owns it and their values, calling its current spread a failure of regulation.

On Macklemore being dropped from Ed Sheeran's tour after pro-Palestinian remarks on stage, Eno said “Ed was weak”, while acknowledging the pressure of tens of thousands of tickets already sold. He noted he was born on 15 May 1948, the date tied to the Nakba. He said he would love to retire but would not know what to do without work.

Brian Eno is a British musician, producer, music theorist and visual artist, born in 1948 in Melton, known for ambient music, art pop and art rock. His newest studio album, according to MusicBrainz, is “2 Slow Stories”, released on 5 March 2026.