Music for Airports

A conscious attempt to create  music as background ambience for airports.
The idea was new at the time, and Eno is considered the inventor of “Ambient Music”.
But it also harks back the pre recorded-music era, where real musicians were necessary to provide the background for restaurants, for aristocrats’ delight, for ceremonies and events. A time where being a musician wasn’t such a bad career choice. Whoever needed music – needed musicians. Eno was irritated by the uninspiring background sounds of a “non-place” like an airport, and tried to create a musical counterpart for it. Nowadays when recorded music is becoming almost audio-pollution—almost everywhere, including some airports, one can hear background music. But nothing like what Eno imagined.
Inspired by Satie’s Furniture Music (background music played by live musicians), but aiming to do something new, to create music for non-places, Eno was also tapping into one of the most traditional practices of music – to provide an ambience.

Like Eno’s soundtrack for the non-place, perhaps the non-place itself is a somewhat a return to tradition. A “place” is, by definition, temporary.