Air review

Mark Mackay

We review Air, the ultimate in ambient sound for the iPhone

Published on Oct 20, 2009

The ambient music scene in the past decade or so was quickly taken advantage of my genres such as drum and bass.

Albums such as LTJ Bukem’s Progression Sessions took full advantage of the awesome combination of relaxing sounds and modern beats. Whether you’re into to any ambient stuff or not, most people would agree that it can be relaxing if you’ve had a stressful day.

Air has taken the ambient music genre and turned it into an interactive music making application for the iPhone. The developers have taken inspiration from ambient musician Brian Eno, someone that many consider to be a pioneer in ambient music, though he’s perhaps better known for his time in the famous 70s band, Roxy Music.

The business end of the application is essentially a new agey type keyboard, with different portions of a crystal design representing buttons for different sounds. The sound bites are a combination of chant-like vocals or moody piano-type notes that play over a slow cacophony of hypnotic ambient audio.

In the settings menu you can adjust things like what the buttons can do. For example if all you wanted was different notes of vocal samples to play, then that can be arranged. The settings are separated into two columns, one for listening to the music and another for conducting your own. If you want to listen to the music to help relax then you can set a sleep timer so it doesn’t waste your battery while you nod off.

The notes play for a long time after you press them, the result of which is that they blend into one another in a constantly evolving melody of ridiculously relaxing proportions. While the settings menu is clear and the input screen pretty cool, an app like this is really about the quality of the sounds and Air has it nailed down.

Reading the ‘About’ page, it’s clear that a lot of thought has gone into ensuring that this app delivers ambient goodness in as effective a manner as possible. Air is an essential for anyone into ambient sounds, be it LTJ Bukem or Brian Eno.