Somewhere in between their first two albums, Enon put out a couple of limited edition CD-R releases, often in ornate packaging—one of the neat things about smaller bands is the hand-crafted goodness that often goes along with the music. On Hold came packaged inside the casing of an old 5.25-inch floppy disk the band bought from an electronics surplus store, but the fun container is only part of the charm. The 19-track EP is also full of short, atmospheric instrumentals that bear only a slight resemblance to the upbeat, danceable noise-pop of High Society—in other words, on-hold music. But this isn’t your father’s muzak; there’s a cold, ominous quality to On Hold that actual on-hold music alludes to only through its association with anonymous corporate offices.
For most of us, hold music is at best a novelty and at worst an annoyance; I’ve taken to using On Hold as a sleep aid myself (and I mean that in the best way, Enon, I swear). But for the ultra-keen, there are other options. A friend of mine from university came up with an ingenious way to share one phone line between his engineer roommates: they bought a phone exchange unit off eBay on the cheap and used it to route calls throughout the house. You’d call him up and hear “If you’d like to call the living room, press 1. For Frank, press 2….” and so on. They even hooked the telex up to a radio for hold music. If only they’d known about the likes of “Gimlet” and “Please Hold.” A German label called Slowboy re-released On Hold on vinyl in 2004, so if you ever feel like setting up your own subversive phone exchange, you know who to call for music.