Customer Reviews

Ambient 1: Music for Airports

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was 14 in 1984, and I remember laughing when I first saw the title to this lp- what is a Music for Airport, anyhow? (such a silly 14 year old thought) But I was intrigued by the concept, I saw one of my idols, Robert Wyatt, as a credit on the lp, and the lp was used, so for a mere .50, I ventured into the world of Brian Eno for the second time (I loved his Roxy Music works).

From the opening piano strokes of Wyatt, I was hooked. I couldn't listen to the lp enough. I listened to it at high volume,and at low volumes. At night; during the day; during rain; windy conditions; perfect calm. It didn't matter. The music transcended all conditions. I was amazed. I was (and still am) a huge Erik Satie fan, and Eno was the modern day Satie. The concepts were beautifully simple and effective, yet wreaked of sophisication. My friends at school were listening to Ratt and other 80s hair bands, and I was into Eno. They didn't get it. It was fine. Eno was mine.

Today, almost 16 years later, "Music for Airports" is one of the cornerstones of my musical identity. I have listened to it 1000's of times (as with all instrumental Eno lps), and still am amazed by the absolute simplicity of it. While Eno played with ambient soundscapes before ("Discreet Music," Fripp and Eno's 2 recordings), none better encapsulated at the time what he was driving towards better than this lp (in my view, "Ambient 4: On Land" best encapsulates ambient music).

This lp is a gem of the highest calibre, and is a must in any reputable music collection. A must have.

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.

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").

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.

This is the first of four albums that Brian Eno released on his 'Ambient' label around the end of the 1970s. It is not, however, this first musical exploration of this sort that Eno engaged in. For those, one should turn to his "Discrete Music" or his collaborations with Robert Fripp. It does not directly have anything to do with his pop output of the same period, also, although parts of "Another Green World" and "Before and After Science" definitely share some of these aesthetic territory with these compositions. Rather, this is something which finds its parentage in both the 'furniture music' concepts of Erik Satie and process music techniques as used by diverse composers such as John Cage, Steve Reich, et al. These four works, very sparse and slowly-evolving, were intended for use as installation pieces for LaGuardia airport in NYC, and are intended by Eno to be a calming, contemplative set which 'prepares the listener for death', in Eno's words. One gets the impression he's perhaps not too enamored with air travel? Anyway, this music is beautiful, sublime, and perhaps to this day some of the greatest ambient music ever composed. The free-running tapeloop process that Eno devised to 'collage' the spare musical fragments here together into their works created a slow, gradually-shifting, and organic atmosphere, very unlike those achieved by more recent ambient musicians making use of MIDI and/or other methods to achieve much the same ends. Ownership of this should be mandatory, quite honestly, especially for anyone who has to deal with stress on a routine basis.

This is one of the very best ambient works ever made. Arguably the Godfather of Ambience, Eno created music that was complex and deeply moving, while at the same time keeping everything withing a minimalist context. This is NOT New Age / Muzak kitch, which has been passed of as ambience more than once. On the contrary, this ambience is real, legitimate music and should be considered as a genre worthy of the highest respect.
I have listened to this many times at airports, and this work has captured the multitude of emotions and conceptions that occur in airports everyday, with sincerity and poignant observation.

If you're like me, you probably listen to any number of musical genres ranging from funk to classical, jazz to folk, rock to techno, and everything and anything in between. Listening to music, along with brushing my teeth or bathing or eating, is one of the few things in my life which I do with such consistency that it has almost become an unconscious behavior. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is turn on the CD player and press play; then I make coffee. The rest of the things in my life seem to circle around those two simple actions.
Yet, there are times when I listen to music that I can't quite grasp what I'm listening to; or the music feels heavy and whines in my ears; or the music just doesn't move me in any particular way. At these times, I often find myself thinking of other songs I'd rather be listening to, but when I play these other songs they don't seem to be what I want to listen to either. Usually, a good dose of silence is all I need; then I start to hear the neighbors fighting or their children playing a game in the street or toilets flushing or tires making that unique swishing wet-road sound. That's all I need to resume listening.
Brian Eno's Ambient 1 works almost as well as silence to "cleanse the (musical) palate". Whereas silence has a way of pressing in and drawing attention to itself, much like when you suddenly notice the shadows around objects you hadn't paid much attention to, Eno's Ambient 1 instead seems to do the impossible by simultaneously softening the edge of silence while muffling the demands of listening to a piece of music.
For that reason, Ambient 1 has become an integral part of my music collection, brought out on an almost daily basis to ease ear-strain (let's face it, you can listen to TOO much music) in those moments when silence is too sharp. I like to think of it as musical sorbet which lets me wash away the residual sounds left over from listening to various artists. Besides, there are times when it's just not a good idea to progress too quickly from, say Vaughn-Williams' "The Lark Ascending" to Primal Scream.

Brian Eno is a master of sound, simply put. In "Music for Airports" (Ambient 1) he has crafted the soundtrack of inner peace.

This sound sculpture was originally meant as a background setting for an airport terminal. It is easy to close your eyes and imagine hearing "1/1" tinkling mutedly like an electronica wind chime being stirred by the flow of travelers going to and fro. It could provide a calming center about which all the fracas and hurriedness revolves. I also imagine hearing it as the last traveler to leave the airport at night, as the final weary travelers stumble from the last flight of the night through the emptied terminal toward their cars.

Equally as wonderful - listen to Ambient 1 on a rainy day. Let it intermix with the sound of rain falling on your windows.

I use this CD to calm myself, as an accompaniment to yoga, and have used it to fall asleep. There is something in the gentle yet uneven rhythm of the tones that induces a deep relaxation state. I have found it enhances my study time as well.

Ambient music is meant to be played as a background to a normal activity. Think of it as a fluid frame surrounding a variety of daily activity. It also functions well as a mask for everyday noise, becoming a calming, peaceful environment to guard us from outside intrusion so that we may turn inward to find our own peacefulness inside. Eno has produced in this recording a multifaceted jewel of quietness, inner rhythms, and a soothing refuge inside which we can listen and let echo through our souls his own special rhythm.

I highly recommend this beautiful work of art.

Brian Eno, what can I say? An elusive figure in the music industry but yet regularly produces new material. I first heard Eno on a collaboration album with Harold Budd and have been loyal ever since. Music for Airports is a soothing, interesting work. I remember playing it on a vinyl record as a child in my room, my mother said later that night to my father, "Did you hear that heavenly music?" Apparently she thought it was coming from the sky (or the local church). I promptly replaced my vinyl version with the CD because it stands out in my music collection as one of the most played CD's for meditation or just plain relaxation. DISCOVER ENO! hint: if you like Eno try Harold Budd also.

I finally bought this disc after much procrastination. I have been into Eno since I bought Another green world almost four years ago but never got around to this until now. It seems that some people just don't get the tranquil emotional simplicity that this disc conveys. One reviewer stated he could make sounds like this just banging on his keyboard. So what?? Every note Eno strikes on his keyboard also strikes a note in my heart that is unexplainable, but very beautiful. This album isn't for everyone, obviously, but after only listening to it once I can safely say it moved me to tears. It allowed me to think more clearly and calmly. Most other "New Age" music doesn't do it for me but somehow this just sounds so heartfelt that it makes me happy and sad at the same time. To compare this to any of Eno's past works and say which one is better would not be fair. What I do is compare them and shake my head at how beautifully different they are. Eno is a master at making simple things sound more beautiful than the most complex pieces, that says a lot! Buy this and relax with it.