Ambient 1: Music for Airports is the album with which Brian Eno gave ambient music its name, the first of four records in his Ambient series, issued by Polydor and EG at the turn of 1978 and 1979. The idea came to him in 1977 while waiting at the airport in Cologne: such a place, he reasoned, needed music that could soothe travellers’ anxiety without demanding attention, and that could run indefinitely.
Its four pieces, titled simply 1/1, 2/1, 1/2 and 2/2, are built from tape loops of different lengths, so that piano phrases played by Robert Wyatt, wordless voices and synthesiser tones recombine in patterns that never quite repeat. Eno’s liner notes set out the principle that this music should reward listening while remaining easy to ignore, and he drew its scores as graphic images. The record has since been played in real terminals, including LaGuardia in New York, and the ensemble Bang on a Can performed it live in 1998.