basically nothing can beat brian eno - ambient 1 - music for airports.

i tend to gravitate more towards the sort with heavy melodic overtones or just out and out melody, not just sort of ambient sounds; although theres plenty of that thats good as well.

so far for recent discoveries im liking stars of the lid - avec laudanum and biosphere - substrata.

also loooove me some atmospheric/ambient black metal.

what are you into?

Anything and everything from before or since. But this one is particularly nice.

If you have not, search out the thread 'Avec's Ambient Nook' for page upon page of great ambient recommendations

you'll learn to search

ambient thread dude....ambient thread. Great stuff in there.

Hey, 2 of my favorite ambient albums right there in your post my friend. That Stars of the Lid album has just been pressed to vinyl a couple weeks back, too, if you wanna pick it up in that format.

Can't go wrong with any of the Budd/Eno collab's, they're pretty much essential.

Been listening a lot to these lately though
Aloof Proof - Piano Text (reissue on Infraction Records)
Steve Roach - Immersion Three (three disc set of electronic drone loops)
Christopher Bissonnette - In Between Words (New Kranky release, pretty good!)
Bersarin Quartett (quality hybrid of electronic and classical)
Benoit Pioulard - Precis (pop music with a lot of interesting layers, it's really grown on me like crazy now)

happy hunting!

Airports is pretty essential... but I prefer the sparse, floating melodic sound of:

Almost two years going, and I still don't get the appeal of this record. I certainly don't hate it, but I've never been able to connect with it in any meaningful way. Maybe it's just beyond me, or something...I've heard nothing but praise, my own opinion notwithstanding.