The secret life of airports

Hamad International Airport, Qatar reimagined by Cities and Memory.

This piece is informed by those little moments when you're sitting in an airport, listening to the sounds of the world going by, when at a certain point, certain sounds seem to interlock and overlap in just such a way as to create a rhythm or a musical melody. You sit up, listen, and before you've barely had time to notice, the moment is gone, the sounds untangle themselves, and the world goes on as before.

This happened to me while contemplating this recording, with the occasional quasi-arpeggio or proto-rhythm popping out of the calm/chaos. As a tribute to these moments when you feel like you've discovered the secret life of airports, I made this piece from eight interlocked pieces of the same synth, which build and build along with your recognition and realisation and - just the way those moments go in "real life" - the rhythms disappear at once, leaving only the sound you were first listening to.