brian eno

I Am Sitting In A Room

While the soundtracks in games are pushed farther and farther into the background, their composers can learn from the ambient innovators who turned background music into art.

Chris Dahlen

— 6 min read
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Concentric teal rectangles spiralling inward on a printed field of stars, a white circle low in the frame.
Illustration by David Lemm

In 1977, while stuck in the Cologne Airport in Germany, Brian Eno—musician, theorist, and iconic bald genius—started to think about music. He imagined the kind of music that belonged in an airport—not just a song or a ballad, but background music, that could play continuously and unobtrusively throughout the building. That idea grew into one of his best-known works, 1978’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports, but even if you know the album, take a minute and imagine: If you were to make music for an airport, what would you do? Would you splice in the sounds of the public announcements, the police radios, and the families reuniting at the baggage claim? Would you try to capture the rush to a gate, or the patience of waiting at the terminal bar while your flight’s delayed once again?

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