Brian Eno has more than earned his reputation as one of the great instructors of modern music, but his work in ambient is where he continues to grow in stature. This collaboration with conceptual artist and composer Beatie Wolfe leans into the meditative end of his output, with two albums that rely on transcendent wisps of noise and Wolfe’s soaring, breathy voice. 

Although it’s being promoted as a double album, these are wildly contrasting experiences. Luminal combines elements of classic rock with dream pop and lucid melodies that have the quality of a smooth coffee brewing on an early morning. Lateral, meanwhile, is pure ambient, a series of sustained synthetic notes, lightly plucked guitars and slow-moving repetitions that emboss a wallpaper pattern both enveloping and unimposing. 

A game of two very different halves, then, which offers two very different degrees of success. Luminal proves the more fruitful listen, in no small part because Wolfe’s plaintive lyricism is a startling foil to the lilting tempo of Eno’s synths. Playfulness (a notion that Eno likes to emphasise throughout his many masterclasses on creativity) is in rich supply, from the undercurrent of digital threat that permeates ‘A Ceiling And A Lifeboat’ to the vulnerable whale song of ‘Breath March’, which hits pockets of overwhelming beauty. 

There is structure, finesse and Eno’s usual eye for immaculate production, but with wrinkles in its design that foster spontaneous moments of surprise, drama and awe-inspiring wonder. Perhaps the overwhelming success of Luminal is what makes the sound-bath emptiness of Lateral feel lacklustre by comparison. It is a torpid experience, conforming to an archetype of ambient rather than breaking new ground, building an anonymous atmosphere that’s serviceable for a spa treatment centre’s waiting room but providing little of the spark that Eno is famed for igniting in all those around him. 

Luminal & Lateral is released by Verve on Friday 6 June; main picture: Cecily Eno.