"Music for Airports" generator

July 13, 2022 5:22 AM

Brian Eno created Music for Airports by recording single notes, 3-4 note phrases, and choral harmonies each on their own track of magnetic tape. Then, cutting the tapes to different lengths and splicing them into a loop, he fed them through a tape player at the same time, creating his famous, infinitely-long, never-repeating composition. Reverb Machine isolated each loop, letting you recreate the composition as it was originally designed. At the other extreme, you can watch humans trying to precisely recreate this randomness live in an airport.

Music for Airports previously
Brian Eno previously

posted by rebent (32 comments total)

I have his handheld thingy, the size of an old transistor radio that has something of the same non repeating goal. But I hadn’t contemplated how it was done - I wanted the output. This post is great, I want to dig deeper!
posted by drowsy at 5:29 AM on July 13, 2022

Drowsy, do you refer to the Buddha Machine?
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:34 AM on July 13, 2022 [4 favorites]

I really love the Bang on a Can arrangement. They had a studio recording in the 90's that was actually my introduction to Music for Airports. I love that they actually performed it live in an airport, and I love hearing the airport sounds overlapping with the music.

Part 1 never ceases to mesmerize and move me. It's very close to a spiritual experience. There's something deeply compassionate, welcoming, restful and expansive about it -- and something that tugs on the heart strings -- for lack of better words.
posted by treepour at 6:08 AM on July 13, 2022 [10 favorites]

1/1 is one of the vibrant world-changing tracks for me - like Rock Around the Clock or Anarchy in the UK but not, of course, so frenetic. I still remember hearing it on John Peel when it came out. The piano part is a snippet of Robert Wyatt playing that was then slowed down to half speed, but sounds so considered that one wouldn't suspect it of being recontextualised from somewhere else. Not any kind of mistake, but absolutely an example of hidden intention. The success of Eno's ambient loop music stems from the fact that he seems to know what flavours go together and how little of any of them are needed to balance the other flavours. It's not in the least bit surprising that another of his interests is perfume.
posted by Grangousier at 6:09 AM on July 13, 2022 [10 favorites]

Thanks much for this post, and for the inspiration to revisit this work.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:52 AM on July 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

and I love hearing the airport sounds overlapping with the music.

speaking of previouslies ...

Eno's Music For Airports - True Story ...

Early 1990s sometime. Winter, Vancouver, BC. It's snowed recently but now there's a thaw on. Lots of melting going on. We drop acid one night and, once the electricity hits, decide a walk through the UBC Endowment Lands is in order. This is rainforest, acres and acres of it, lots of bike trails and the like. But at night, in the middle of winter, it's a good bet you've got it all to yourself.

We drag a ghetto blaster with us so we can have a soundtrack. Stuff like Can and Miles Davis and Tricky while we're walking, which makes for a suitably cool, otherworldly atmosphere, particularly with our flashlights cutting the mist that's settling in places. After a mile or so, we take a break to drink a little port, smoke cigars (all part of the ritual). But once we're not moving anymore, the music's wrong. Too active. So I grab Music For Airports, slap it in ...

Something happens.

It's entirely in synch with this deep, dark forest moment, snow melting from high branches, a steady and multi-faceted dripping all around. And then something else becomes apparent once we lie down, stare upward at the stars, glimpsed through treetops and shifting layers of mist, and beyond that wisps of high cloud -- we realize (remember) we're in the flight path of Vancouver International Airport. It's maybe 9pm so the skies are active indeed -- a steady coming and going of big jets and their trailing roars. Everything scored perfectly by the music in question.

Music for Airports indeed.
posted by philip-random at 7:20 AM on July 13, 2022 [12 favorites]

There's an IOS app called Fugue Machine that makes this technique easy and very adjustable over 4 tracks of sound. You can run multiple instances in the host mixer app AUM. You need ios synths to receive the midi data you set up, but you can run multiple instances. I've done up to a 12-track composition this way, it started to turn to mush so less is more for me unless you really pare down the midi data. Less is more. It's cheap and a blast to work with and I've made some music I really love this way. It's worth a look if you'd like to give it a try, you have an iphone or ipad, and want to try the technique easily. I did tape loop compositions in college, and it's been a revelation for me. My Ipad is like 8 years old and it works fine.
posted by hilberseimer at 7:34 AM on July 13, 2022 [4 favorites]

Brian Eno's Windows 95 startup chime is my all time favorite. great post.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:35 AM on July 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

1/1 from the live version by Bang on a Can was my (not so) secret weapon when my ex was having trouble sleeping. I could start it playing, they'd put their head on my shoulder, and in minutes be asleep.
posted by Candleman at 8:39 AM on July 13, 2022

I’d never heard of this piece before and I’ve already fallen in love with it. Thanks so much for posting!
posted by ElasticParrot at 8:49 AM on July 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

this is cool!

Music for Airports is also lovely to take a candlelit bath to.
posted by supermedusa at 9:09 AM on July 13, 2022

Brian Eno's Windows 95 startup chime yt is my all time favorite

B:/ Startup (Blank Banshee)

yes, it should be a backslash, but it isn't
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:12 AM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

I played this track to calm down my dog when she was a puppy.
posted by vanitas at 9:32 AM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

This is an incredible free jazz interpretation of Music for Airports from Chris Schlarb/Psychic Temple
posted by sleeping bear at 10:28 AM on July 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

the flip side's pretty cool as well ...

Music For Bus Stops
posted by philip-random at 10:49 AM on July 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

And I can highly recommend Stephen Whittington's "Music for Airport Furniture" which is the missing link between Satie and Eno.
posted by fallingbadgers at 12:54 PM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

Before I knew about Brian Eno, I was waiting for a flight in an actual airport and had kind of an overstimulation crisis about all of the terrible ambient noises which were repeating at random non-overlapping intervals. I think I remember counting at least nine different messages. I don’t remember them all, but a subset:

• you are approaching the end of the moving sidewalk. do not fall off the end of the moving sidewalk
• the flight at gate 35, to my right, is now boarding zone one, zone one
• screw you, gate 35: gate 38, to my left, is now boarding, i’m going to talk right over you
• the television is playing a 24 hour news show. there is a breaking event. they have written a ten-minute summary. after ten minutes they read the summary again, but they learned something, so it’s only 90% the same.
• the television in the other direction is doing exactly the same thing, but also wouldn’t you like to buy a car
• the concourse restaurant next to the gate is playing music
• do NOT fall off the end of the moving sidewalk
• the bookstore store across the hallway from the restaurant is playing their own music
• someone also waiting for the plane is also playing music
• you are approaching the end of the moving sidewalk. do NOT fall off of the end of the moving sidewalk

posted by fantabulous timewaster at 1:12 PM on July 13, 2022 [10 favorites]

@seanmpuckett - that's the one!
posted by drowsy at 1:24 PM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

Whenever I fly, I put Music for Airports on some big over-ear Sennheisers for the most calmingly chill way to navigate the space.
posted by FatherDagon at 2:00 PM on July 13, 2022

I had the Buddha Machine app on my iPad. One could crossfade among all six different machines. (It's not available in the shop any more, sadly.)
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:02 PM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

Adding to the thanks for posting. It's like Wolfram's cellular automata for sound! I never went deeply in Eno's ambient stuff, thought I have listened to a lot of Fripp. The sheer simplicity of this approach, and the relative ease with which an interested person can experiment in this area, makes me glad I live in the 21st century.
posted by Sparx at 3:05 PM on July 13, 2022

cellular automata that generate ambient music would be super awesome
posted by rebent at 3:13 PM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

cellular automata that generate ambient music would be super awesome

Hmmm. It is apparently already a thing: Wolfram Tones
posted by Sparx at 3:22 PM on July 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

Listening to the Sydney Opera House performance (2nd link) now. Beautiful! But the (coincidental I am sure) resemblance to the Australian folk/Music Hall song Botany Bay is maddening. (I mean this song NOT the one about Jim Jones.) And now I've given myself an earworm! Damn it.
posted by Coaticass at 3:24 PM on July 13, 2022

I had the Buddha Machine app on my iPad

The code is somewhere. Can we find it?
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:18 PM on July 13, 2022

Given we are up to iOS 15 now (and iOS 16 soon) this does not bode well for any offical update/re-release:

"The iOS Buddha Machine app is no longer available in the App Store. We hope to update compatibility for iOS11 and have it back on-line soon!"
posted by Pouteria at 6:43 PM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

In 1984 I took an airplane from Hamburg to Berlin (ca. 300 km) just because that weird little airport Berlin TXL provided an installation of Brian Eno's gorgeous ambient piece. The employees there were, alas, not amused by the constant 'Gedudel' (droning)...
posted by lorenzlm at 2:17 AM on July 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

FM3 Buddha Machine on BandCamp.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:12 AM on July 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

(There were also Buddha Machine versions from Philip Glass and Throbbing Gristle.)
posted by box at 11:16 AM on July 14, 2022

Robert Henke (aka Monolake) was given an early Buddha Machine and used it to make the rather hostile ambient album Layering Buddha. It's really good if you're in the mood for alien architecture music.
I think Music for Airports is still Eno's best ambient album although I could make a case for On Land being better. Both records have been past of my life for for decades now, so I'm a little biased perhaps.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:04 PM on July 14, 2022

Eno has a couple of generative apps with Peter Chilvers on iOS called Bloom, and an apparent sequel called Bloom - 10 Worlds. I use them for evenings when reading. Paid but well worth the money.

I love his stuff. He did a limited edition release called January 07003: Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now that is one of my all time favorites.
posted by cybrcamper at 9:58 PM on July 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

A short interview about Music For Airports that I can't find linked above, but might have missed.
posted by Grangousier at 6:52 AM on July 18, 2022