Track Listing

1. 1/1
2. 2/1
3. 1/2
4. 2/2

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5276 in Music
• Released on: 2004-10-05
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Amazon.com essential recording
Eno's theory of the "discreet music" he called ambient was far from the modern chill-out room: the idea was that it should function at very low volumes, unobtrusively coloring the atmosphere of a room. Evolving by tiny gradations, the long pieces of Music For Airports (the first in a series of albums that followed the statement of purpose Discreet Music) defy close attention, but then they're not meant to be listened to consciously; they're meant to serve as a counterpoint to the frantic arcs of travel, or rather to be imagined in that setting. --Douglas Wolk

Amazon.com
This complex sound sculpture was created by Brian Eno in 1978 and was even installed for a while at the Marine Terminal of New York at LaGuardia Airport. The ambient-minimalist soundscape has been alternately described as background Muzak, a profoundly artificial musical milieu, and a groundbreaking studio creation. Eno designed Music for Airports from a few simple notes and the serial organization of variable tape loops that didn't quite match up. It's a groundbreaking elaboration on the aural/spatial dimension that utilizes silence, piano, synthesizer, female voices, and, most importantly, the technology of the studio. A true metaclassic, the "music" is divided into four distinct movements. This record is the first of Eno's ambient series and is undoubtedly the best. --Mitch Myers

Customer Reviews

GREAT
I feel rather silly jumping on the Eno bandwagon decades after his best and most influential works were released. But here I am. Burned out on everything else, uninspired by anything new, I find myself going back to Eno again and again. This cd is really great. Simple, easy to listen to ( but certainly not "Muzak" )and very relaxing without being boring. Nice to listen to at night before bed, cool in the background when its raining out. And yes, I did actually put this on headphones as I waited for a flight out of Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport.

Puts Eno in the level of the best artists and producers alive.
Brian Eno's seminal masterpiece is quite simply beyond being among the best ambient albums of all time. It is among the best albums ever, period. Recorded in a time of musical turmoil (think punk) and after his glam stint alongside Roxy Music and helping bring in "enossification" and some other of his recording techniques into the life of numerous bands in the UK in the mid-to-late seventies, "Ambient 1: Music for Airports" became a timeless piece without much effort.

Eno captured the essence of the instruments he recorded, looping them and interweaving them to accomplish an exquisite minimalist sound in all four songs. From the first track (over 17 minutes in duration), which features pianos and synthesizer, the album captures you. In the second track, the haunting sampled voices that walk the aisles of a multitude of sound layers bring a dimension to the music that was unheard of until then. Track 1/2 combines the instruments from the first two tracks (voices and piano) in a new fashion, due to the phasing of the tape loops, which makes them "explore" new musical spaces as they evolve through the track's 12+ minutes of duration. The last track only reconfirms the exquisite character of the album, bringing it all back home.

The fact that this album was recorded in 1978 is very impressive, since it became a landmark of the ambient movement to follow in future decades. But the fact that it was recorded at all and it reaches such levels of (almost) painful beauty would suffice to place Eno in the level of the best artists and producers alive. Other musicians influenced by Eno that are highly recommendable would be Mark Isham (OST for "Crash") and Cliff Martinez (OST for "Traffic").

Beauty in simplicity.
Brian Eno's "Music For Airports" is a further realization of his ambient concept, first realized on "Discreet Music". The concept again is similar, simple lines of varying lengths are played in loops, allowing them to interact in various ways. The results are often times remarkable. For music intended to be background material, this work can grab your attention.

The opening movement, and probably the best on the release, is a good example of Eno's idiom-- two or three extended loops of simple piano and electric piano intertwine. The results are absolutely stunning as the music has a delicate and gentle quality to it. While the rest of the record isn't nearly as good as this piece (one piece is a vocal-only loop piece, one is vocal-and-piano, and the closer is pure synthesizer), it is all quite good.

"Music For Airports" is an engaging and interesting record, well worth investigation for anyone interested in ambient music. I prefer Eno's "Discreet Music" for early ambient material, but this is a superb record. Recommended.