2350.org - Aerial Service Area

An "Aerial Service Area" is of course an "Airport" and this album looks like a tribute to what is considered to be the first ambient album in its genre: "Music for Airports" from Brian Eno, way back in 1978. Because that particular Eno album had no tracknames, only the title of the album could refer to it. But even all the tracknames on this album pay respect to Eno: "Eternal Infinity" as opposed to "Ending" on "Apollo", "Liquid Water" refers to "Slow Water" on "Music For Films", "Highglow" to "Shadow" on "On Land" and finally "Another Green Airport" to "Another Green World" on the ditto named album.

With access to today's much more sophisticated equipment Aerial Service Area brings you a brilliant and so quietening ode to what is not only the first, but also one of the very best ambient albums of all times and more in general to the work of Brian Eno.

"Low volume listening recommended" is what it says in the booklet and this was also Eno's idea of this kind of ambient: creating a very pleasant atmosphere without being too noticeable for the audience. Muzak may sound negative to most people, but making music that does NOT capture the attention of the listener, yet brings so much beauty, is a very difficult thing to do and that is exactly what is done here, although compared to the Eno album it does capture a bit more your attention.

I know they played "Music for Airports" in Chicago Airport, but I'm afraid that with "Aerial Service Area" a lot of passengers would miss (or truly experience) their flight. A must have tout court! Brilliant.

(review by Jean-Marc Dekesel)

Victor Sol, Niko Heyduck and Atom Heart have put out a really nice release. Opening with a continuous slowly wavering drone, ETI encoding sets the mood for us....very chill. This track is actually very enjoyable as it shifts a bit here and there and winds down suddenly near the end. A nice piece to wind us down...lull us let's say. Eternal [infinity] ([infinity] being substituted for the real infinity symbol) is heavenly. This is one of those tracks with that soaring cosmic feel to it (sorta like A Million Miles to Earth maybe). I can think of many influences and similarities, but they aren't really necessary now. There are some very strong melodies here. This track rises and falls, gets very quiet at times and then comes back soaring..nearly 19 minutes worth! Wow. With a slowly diminishing ending we move right on into Liquid Water- a wonderful shimmering track. This track is only about 5 minutes long, but it is great. It sounds just like the title. Highlow is rather dark and I like it. It's full of dark drones and pulses, which increase in speed slowly until wham! these very evil sounds come in...in the vein of Inoue's dark stuff, but with a more minimal structure. Chilling nonetheless. Another Green Airport is like track 2, and like Eno in both sound and title, and I like it very much. Tracks like these, very calm and tranquil ones with a human like chorus have always been favorites. It is very much like 12:18 on Global Communication's 76.14 but much much more subdued and not nearly as dramatic. And it follows this quiet theme for the whole 15 minutes and that is just fine with me. This disc is very much recommended.

(review by rdudley)