The newly issued half-speed remastered edition of Brian Eno’s Ambient 1 / Music for Airports is very welcome.
The CD version I bought about 15 years ago sounded rather poor quality, with a distracting tape hiss running throughout. A bit frustrating when it’s one of the greatest and most important pieces of music of the 20th century.
It was a bit of a mystery to me why some other Brian Eno albums got this lavish remaster treatment first. The new version is spread across 2 LPs of heavyweight vinyl, played at 45rpm. This means each track luxuriously has its own side.
I don’t know much about the science of remastering techniques. But there’s no doubt to me that this sounds fantastic.
I’ve never been so pleased to hear a remastered album. The tape hiss is all but obliterated, and there are lots of details I hadn’t heard before.
40 years on from its original release, one of the most pleasing pieces of music now sounds almost perfect.
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