Ambient 1: Music for Airports | 
| Creators: Brian Eno, Robert Wyatt, Christa Fast, Christine Gomez, Inge Zeininger
Label: Astralwerks
List Price: $16.98
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Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 2609
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 5.5 x 4.8 x 0.3
MPN: 66495
UPC: 724386649522
EAN: 0724386649522
ASIN: B0002PZVH0
Release Date: October 5, 2004
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| Editorial Reviews:
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 27 more reviews...
 GREAT December 6, 2004
J. Brady (PAWLEYS ISLAND, SC United States)
44 out of 45 found this review helpful
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. March 29, 2006
Manny Hernandez (Palo Alto, CA)
28 out of 29 found this review helpful
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. June 14, 2005
Michael Stack (Watertown, MA USA)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
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.
Musical Sorbet January 25, 2005
Joe (NY, NY)
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
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.
Seminal work July 14, 2006
roland (Idaho)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
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.
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