On: where music goes
And then in 1978, Village People had a hit with YMCA, and Brian Eno made an album that was somewhere between documentary and dream, between rigid and random, between his heart and his mind. Fans of YMCA who heard the record might have complained that it had no rhythm, no melody, that it was austere and unemotional, cold and boring, stupid and no fun to stay at. They would not be able to choose a favourite track from 1/1,2/1,1/2, 2/2.
Music For Airports was Ambient 1 – Discreet must have been less than zero – and to some extent it was conceived as an aid for those with a fear of flying, or certainly a fear of crashing, or perhaps just a feeling of anxiety about whether they will ever see their luggage again, something to be piped over the intercoms at airports. It was a simple, sophisticated opposition to the traditional commercial idea of muzak that seemed to ignore or deflate the senses, a form of background music that not only created a kind of aural cushion, a hint of bliss in the day to day distance, but that also subtly lifted the spirits.
Here are some sentences scratched into the sand on the beach where the tide has gone out : it is considered by many to be the ultimate ambient album, it is a landmark recording in the history of electronic music, some of the best background music for writing, music designed to induce calm and space to think, designed to be as listenable as it is ignorable, it was a redefinition of how we relate to music in our daily lives, I’m still waiting for 1/1 to resolve the 3 Blind Mice Theme, combating the noise in a post-industrial, post-revolution world, some people are still looking for where the music ends and where it begins, multiple sounds of differing durations running over each other, modern mood music, sonic incense.
Eno said that he was interested in the Borgesian idea that you could invent a world in reverse, by inventing the artefacts that ought to be in it first. You think what kind of music would be in that world, then you make the music and the world forms itself around the music.
Eventually Music For Airports would actually be piped through the intercom in various airports, and a few fans of YMCA might have found themselves tapping a toe or thinking something fresh and amazing as they wandered through a terminal at La Gaurdia NY aware but not aware that in the daydreaming distance 2/2 is bringing the gift of music to holidaymakers .
Often when I am alone in airports I forget where I am going.
The New York music ensemble Bang on a Can said of Music For Airports:
“But the unique factor about Eno's work was that although it could and can exist in the background of everyday life it is music that carries a potency and integrity that goes far beyond the incidental. It's music that is carefully, beautifully, brilliantly constructed and its compositional techniques rival the most intricate of symphonies.”
They produced a live instrument version of the four pieces, and Eno has humbly said that their interpretation moved him to tears. Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson heard it performed live and they said it was heartbreaking. Without thinking, or rather, with thinking, Eno had composed a piece of music that is all at once flat and multi-dimensional, barren and detailed, near and far, music and sound, feeling and unfeeling, spiritual and vacant, real and unreal, practical and magical.
As with the other albums in the Ambient series, the music can evoke deeply personal reactions in different listeners: a sense of alienation, an expression of pure energy, a feeling of panic, of being wrapped in warm blankets, of flying through heaven or a melancholy made even more touching by it’s restraint and control.
(A piece of his face)
- notes by Paul Morley
Tracklist:
1/1
1/2
2/1
2/2
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