Brian Eno- Ambient 1/ Music for Airports

In my last review I said that Brian Eno invented ambient music. He actually didn’t, but he did bring it to the popular consciousness. When he was in the hospital his girlfriend brought him a record of Mozart for him to listen to. When she left the room, she left the volume lower than normal, so Eno was left sitting in bed listening to Mozart playing at low volume for hours. It got him thinking about how music can be part of, and even create the environment in which it is listened to.

The mission became to create a style of music that could function as both foreground and background. Music that you can listen to intently or just ignore. What that means in practical terms is that it is music that mirrors environmental sound. There is always sound going on around you, the house settling, birds chirping, horns honking, we just tune it out because it’s not important. You could choose to listen to it, in fact there’s a meditative quality to doing so. Well, Eno and artists like him create music that has that everywhere and nowhere aspect.

Ambient 1/ Music for Airports is the first of four ambient records that Eno produced. It’s called “music for airports” for two reasons: the first has to do with the way it was made. Eno recorded different loops of instrumental and vocal tracks and set them up so that as they looped they would never sync up or form a pattern, like airplanes leaving the airport. So you can listen through the entire album and never hear what could be called a tune. It’s just always moving. But because it is always moving, that gives it solidity as well.

The second reason it’s called “music for airports” is that Eno intended this record to be able to calm stressful and busy environments like airports, and it could. This is a calming record. I put it on before I go to sleep sometimes, just so I calm down enough to drift off. I could definitely see playing this through headphones as I leave security and hurry to my gate.

5/5 Here’s an experiment, or a challenge if you want to think of it that way: put this album on while you’re doing something, washing dishes, reading, etc., and see how it effects your mood. Are you calmer? How are you interacting with the music? How does it feel like your environment has changed? Welcome to the world of ambient music, my friend. Welcome.