Uploaded January 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Mark Harris explores music that attempt the instrumentation of airborne death, treating Music for Airports as Eno intended – as music to die to – at Ambient@40, a two-day conference to appraise ambient music in relation to Eno’s milestone release
"Music Beyond Airports", edited by Monty Adkins and Simon Cummings, available now in hardcopy and free PDF download via Huddersfield University Press: unipress.hud.ac.uk/plugins/books/19
markharrisstudio.com
ambientat40.wordpress.com
archives.electricspring.co.uk/Seasons/2017-2018/Electric-Spring-2018
This presentation took place as part of the Ambient@40 conference, conveyed by Monty Adkins, Simon Cummings, Rupert Till, and Kristina Wolfe.
In the forty years since the release of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports the concept and aesthetics of ambient music have proliferated, influencing artists as diverse as Taylor Deupree, Steven Wilson, David Lynch and The Orb, infusing drone, microsound, minimalism and experimental electronic music as well as aspects of contemporary instrumental music. The aim of this two-day conference was to appraise ambient music in relation to Eno’s milestone release.
The conference took place at the University of Huddersfield from Friday 23 to Saturday 24 February 2018, running alongside the Electric Spring Festival (www.electricspring.co.uk).
/// CREDITS
Video camera operator: Andie Brown, Pablo Galaz Salamanca, Sam Gillies
Edited by Sam Gillies
Title music: Music for Airports (1/1), Brian Eno. Performed by Decibel New Music Ensemble. decibelnewmusic.com
/// MUSIC
Bloodrock - D.O.A. (1971) youtube.com/watch?v=XhtoRlVUPo0
Chance - High Test (1981) youtube.com/watch?v=sfDH9CTK-zU&index=2&t=0s&list=PLGLGDT-9ZI4JOgJTChQy-uD8WfL5LZx__
Albert Hammond - I Don't Want To Die In An Air Disaster (1974) youtube.com/watch?v=m6u3gK8xWEU&t=44s
Johan Grimonprez - dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997) johangrimonprez.be/main/Film_DAIL_HISTORY_Download.html
/// ABSTRACT
With a touch of irony, Brian Eno tells a story about waiting in Cologne airport where awful piped music provoked him to compose Music for Airports. Prompting reflections on mortality, the forcefully happy melodies he heard in the departure lounge and aeroplane comprised music designed to inoculate against panic. “I thought it was much better to have music that said, ‘Well, if you die it doesn’t really matter’ … I wanted to create a different feeling that you were sort of suspended in the universe and your life or death wasn’t so important”.
By playing and discussing vinyl records that attempt the instrumentation of airborne death I will treat Music for Airports as Eno intended—as music to die to. These are examples of ‘bad music’, records whose motivations and sometimes tasteless musical ideas can be hard to fathom. D.O.A. (1972), is Bloodrock’s, first-person narration of dying after crashing. Jupiter Prophet’s 35,000 Feet: Challenger’s Theme (1986), a Terry Rileyesque synth memorial to the Space Shuttle disaster, blithely croons “a candle in the sky … no stopping to let them cry”. On his LP ‘In Search’, Chance Martin features two flight songs, Too High to Land and High Test, singing “747 started to twirl / Out of control / Look out the window at your own dead ready world”. Merrill Womach’s LP ‘I Believe in Miracles’ gives holy thanks for surviving his own plane crash, while the bizarre Flight F-I-N-A-L…a dramatic comparison to death, enacts a trip to heaven on hymn-filled Inter-World Airlines.
The most compelling film about aeroplane death may be Johan Grimonprez’s pre-9/11 D.I.A.L. H.I.S.T.O.R.Y. showing the timeline of hijacking using documentary footage, extracts from Don DeLillo’s novels, and a soundtrack including ambient music and Do the Hustle, played over terrifying footage of crashes. In the wake of 9/11 and the non-negotiability of hijacking, how has our fear of in-flight death changed and to what extent is Eno’s ambient early-warning solace superseded by desperation to alleviate current insecurities about terrorism? What kind of music is needed to address these new anxieties? Steve Reich’s 2010 WTC 9/11 anyone?
/// BIOGRAPHY
As an artist and writer, approaches to studio work and text are linked by interests in the imagery of intoxication as a form of utopian representation.
Mark Harris explores music that attempt the instrumentation of airborne death, treating Music for Airports as Eno intended – as music to die to – at Ambient@40, a two-day conference to appraise ambient music in relation to Eno’s milestone release
"Music Beyond Airports", edited by Monty Adkins and Simon Cummings, available now in hardcopy and free PDF download via Huddersfield University Press: unipress.hud.ac.uk/plugins/books/19
markharrisstudio.com
ambientat40.wordpress.com
archives.electricspring.co.uk/Seasons/2017-2018/Electric-Spring-2018
This presentation took place as part of the Ambient@40 conference, conveyed by Monty Adkins, Simon Cummings, Rupert Till, and Kristina Wolfe.
In the forty years since the release of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports the concept and aesthetics of ambient music have proliferated, influencing artists as diverse as Taylor Deupree, Steven Wilson, David Lynch and The Orb, infusing drone, microsound, minimalism and experimental electronic music as well as aspects of contemporary instrumental music. The aim of this two-day conference was to appraise ambient music in relation to Eno’s milestone release.
The conference took place at the University of Huddersfield from Friday 23 to Saturday 24 February 2018, running alongside the Electric Spring Festival (www.electricspring.co.uk).
/// CREDITS
Video camera operator: Andie Brown, Pablo Galaz Salamanca, Sam Gillies
Edited by Sam Gillies
Title music: Music for Airports (1/1), Brian Eno. Performed by Decibel New Music Ensemble. decibelnewmusic.com
/// MUSIC
Bloodrock - D.O.A. (1971) youtube.com/watch?v=XhtoRlVUPo0
Chance - High Test (1981) youtube.com/watch?v=sfDH9CTK-zU&index=2&t=0s&list=PLGLGDT-9ZI4JOgJTChQy-uD8WfL5LZx__
Albert Hammond - I Don't Want To Die In An Air Disaster (1974) youtube.com/watch?v=m6u3gK8xWEU&t=44s
Johan Grimonprez - dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997) johangrimonprez.be/main/Film_DAIL_HISTORY_Download.html
/// ABSTRACT
With a touch of irony, Brian Eno tells a story about waiting in Cologne airport where awful piped music provoked him to compose Music for Airports. Prompting reflections on mortality, the forcefully happy melodies he heard in the departure lounge and aeroplane comprised music designed to inoculate against panic. “I thought it was much better to have music that said, ‘Well, if you die it doesn’t really matter’ … I wanted to create a different feeling that you were sort of suspended in the universe and your life or death wasn’t so important”.
By playing and discussing vinyl records that attempt the instrumentation of airborne death I will treat Music for Airports as Eno intended—as music to die to. These are examples of ‘bad music’, records whose motivations and sometimes tasteless musical ideas can be hard to fathom. D.O.A. (1972), is Bloodrock’s, first-person narration of dying after crashing. Jupiter Prophet’s 35,000 Feet: Challenger’s Theme (1986), a Terry Rileyesque synth memorial to the Space Shuttle disaster, blithely croons “a candle in the sky … no stopping to let them cry”. On his LP ‘In Search’, Chance Martin features two flight songs, Too High to Land and High Test, singing “747 started to twirl / Out of control / Look out the window at your own dead ready world”. Merrill Womach’s LP ‘I Believe in Miracles’ gives holy thanks for surviving his own plane crash, while the bizarre Flight F-I-N-A-L…a dramatic comparison to death, enacts a trip to heaven on hymn-filled Inter-World Airlines.
The most compelling film about aeroplane death may be Johan Grimonprez’s pre-9/11 D.I.A.L. H.I.S.T.O.R.Y. showing the timeline of hijacking using documentary footage, extracts from Don DeLillo’s novels, and a soundtrack including ambient music and Do the Hustle, played over terrifying footage of crashes. In the wake of 9/11 and the non-negotiability of hijacking, how has our fear of in-flight death changed and to what extent is Eno’s ambient early-warning solace superseded by desperation to alleviate current insecurities about terrorism? What kind of music is needed to address these new anxieties? Steve Reich’s 2010 WTC 9/11 anyone?
/// BIOGRAPHY
As an artist and writer, approaches to studio work and text are linked by interests in the imagery of intoxication as a form of utopian representation.
![Christopher Trapani: Convergence Lines, Guest Lecture [17.11.2017]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rDkmf-k8zMQ/mqdefault.jpg "Christopher Trapani: Convergence Lines, Guest Lecture [17.11.2017]
American composer Christopher Trapani discusses his work Convergence Lines as part of the guest lecture series of Huddersfield’s Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM) as part of hcmf// 2017
http://christophertrapani.com/wordpresssite/")
