After ‘Music for Airports,’ Brian Eno turns to hospital soundscapes

Brian Eno, the former member of Roxy Music widely credited with inventing ambient music, is working on light and sound installations designed to provide a “healing environment” inside hospitals. It’s a fitting setting: Eno’s ambient work, as exemplified by albums such as Ambient I: Music for Airports, is said to have been inspired by his own experience of spending an extended period in hospital following a car crash.

The first place to incorporate a new Eno installation, according to the Independent, is the Montefiore Hospital in Hove, England. Eno has created two works for the hospital: 77 Million Paintings for Montefiore will occupy the reception area and uses light and generative music in a similar way to the artist’s iOS apps, and Quiet Room for Montefiore has a dedicated soundtrack written specifically to help patients relax. There aren’t any plans to make the music available to anyone else, though — a spokesperson for Eno said “It’s true to say that the Quiet Room for Montefiore is an album that can only be heard in the Montefiore Hospital.”