(Various) - Airport Symphony

Room40
EDRM417

Not “Music for Airports” but “Music of Airports”, this compilation was jointly commissioned by the Queensland Music Festival and Brisbane Airport Corporation, asking eighteen sound artists to create a piece utilizing source recordings “made in and around Brisbane Airport between March and June 2007”. Admittedly, when it comes to corporate commissions, suspicions are raised. From the evidence on the two discs here, however, there’s no indication that compromises were made. Indeed, one can easily imagine that most have whiled away many an airport hours considering the sounds in which they find themselves immersed. Many of the invited musicians tend to the atmospheric in their regular output anyway hence it’s not surprising to hear that general trend in this set, but there are also contributions like that of Toshiya Tsunoda which, trust me, wouldn’t sit well in any corporate boardroom.

Given that, my first impression was one of a slight blandness. Some of the pieces melted into one another without much in the way of distinguishing characteristics. Usually the airport nature of the source was discernible though not always. Closer listening revealed a good amount of detail missed the first time around, though. If nothing really stands out for this listener as exceptional, there is a pretty solid level of decent quality music here, one that fans of Fennesz, Kahn and many of the Australian artists represented here will enjoy.

David Grubbs kicks things off with a satisfying, soft but grimy mélange of plane engine noise, effectively segueing into Richard Chartier’s “Retrieval Path”, a shade less grainy, an inch in the direction of the ambient, though still of interest. Francisco Lopez begins, not unexpectedly, with a bang but then subsides into a hollow, fairly quiet area for a good while before another brief roaring. The thing is, the approaches of these first three tracks, while individually all right, begin to pall a bit when heard adjacently so when Camilla Hannan’s ensuing piece walks similar ground, interest begins to flag. Consequently, the listener keeps a sharp ear out for the cuts that buck this trend. Several are different enough but, like Christopher Charles’ “Airport Symphony: A Brief Life”, stray too close for comfort in the vicinity of the overtly Eno-esque. The conclusion to Disc One, Tsunoda’s “Peak to Peak”, therefore comes as that much more of a surprise, a vicious (seriously, you may want to lower the volume on your system lest you suffer speaker damage) assault of ultra-intense crackles amidst lengthy near-silences. Where in the airport they were sourced is anyone’s guess, though Security should probably get over there right away.

The second disc (there’s over 140 minutes of music here, by the way) continues in much the same vein. The main offender, as far as excessive gaseous meandering, is Stephan Mathieu in his 24-minute “Lux-SCN”’. Not bad of its kind—lush, spacey drones—but insubstantial when set alongside the better works here. Fennesz’ all too brief “Verona” is a fine one, fitting in comfortably with his music from “Venice”, the ringing, metallic edge he imparts performing excellent service as sonic palate cleanser. Burkhard Beins makes purer use of his field recordings (with editing and layering, I imagine), including caught snatches of conversation and it comes as a refreshing tonic to the dronage as does, in a different manner, Jason Kahn’s mix of engine purrs and bird chirps. The final two cuts end the collection intriguingly. Christopher Willits’ “Plane”, as near as I can determine, consists solely of the cabin attendant’s pre-flight safety instructions heard over the general background hubbub followed by the noise of take-off. It’s subtly unnerving in its tepidness, the hum providing something of a threatening undertow. If Joel Stern’s “Terminal Dreamer” is anything to go by, Brisbane Airport is a rather more exotic venue than, say, Newark. A menagerie of animal sounds—birds, definitely, but possibly monkeys?—alongside echoing chatter and, most prominently, a trumpet and mbira (?) player, calmly evoking Southeast Asian patterns á la Jon Hassell. It’s a lovely, yes dreamy, piece.

In sum, while there’s more meat here than was apparent to me on first blush, there’s also a good bit that’s ephemeral. Listeners who find soft-edged ambience conducive will enjoy it a great deal more than those who prefer a certain amount of real-world grit. I would have culled the stronger tracks and presented one solid disc.

room40