Sunday, July 13, 2025
UK travelers can now experience an all-new dimension of their trip as the special soundtrack of Jordan Rakei plays at Heathrow Airport. The very first such project is an original ambient music, created directly from the airport’s own soundscapes, to create an immersive experience that is specifically designed to enhance the traveling experience. Created to capture the excitement and anticipation, the track makes the hassle and bustle of the airport an enjoyable and soothing experience, setting the tone for the trip of a lifetime from start to finish.
Heathrow Unveils Unique Soundtrack by Jordan Rakei to Elevate Summer Travel Experience
This summer, Heathrow Airport is raising the travel experience to new heights with an unparalleled collaboration with acclaimed artist and producer, Jordan Rakei. The union has led to the making of an evocative new song called Music for Heathrow, which is being played in all the airport’s terminals, presenting travelers with a unique and immersive experience.
Drawn from the pioneering work of composer Brian Eno, most notably 1979 ambient music release Music for Airports, the composition by Rakei seeks to capture the same air of serenity and peacefulness but injects airport setting with a new spin. Yet, instead of targeting anxiety alleviation before flights, the track by Rakei is meant to construct eagerness and excitement before travelers embark on their trips.
The album, spanning four individual areas, blends over 50 directly captured Heathrow sounds. The sounds, hand-selected from spots all around the airport, including the busy airfield, the arrival and departure terminals, and the baggage handling area, work together to craft an immersive audio experience that transports listeners into the heart of the world’s busiest airport.
Rakei, with his style of genre-blending, has done his magic by making mundane airport sounds musical ones. Airport sounds that are otherwise often encountered, like the rumbling of the plane taking off, the wailing sirens of the baggage control, and even the rhythmic movement of the suitcases around the baggage carousel, get recreated as melodies and rhythm that speak of travel and excitement.
It is noteworthy that the existing sounds have been cleverly simulated to reproduce the timbres and textures of conventional instrumental music. Thus, the roar of airplanes taking off has been employed to produce rising synthesizer sounds, and the sound of the beep off a security scanner used in well-known airport moments such as Love Actually has been transformed into a rhythmic beat. Integration of these sounds not only mirrors the airport’s hyper-active setting, but it injects an added degree of innovation into the experience of air travel.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the soundtrack is the incorporation of noises that are ubiquitous in airport life yet almost always overlooked by travelers. These range from radio communication between pilots and traffic control, the distant thrum of an aircraft’s engines, and the characteristic “ding” that precedes a Tannoy message, among others. These noises have been integrated with great care into the soundtrack to produce an experience of immersion and identification with the quotidian workings of the airport, making the familiar noises something new and novel.
In a creative homage to pop culture, Rakei has woven sounds from legendary airport scenes in films, adding a nostalgic and cinematic flair to the track. For example, the sound of passengers tapping their feet from the hit film Bend It Like Beckham has been layered into the track, adding a fun and nostalgic element for movie lovers. This creative use of sound further enhances the ambiance, making the track feel like a celebration of travel and the diverse experiences that unfold within an airport setting.
The Heathrow Music track is available to stream on Jordan Rakei’s SoundCloud, and it means that members of the public can now experience the airport’s special soundscapes in the privacy of their own homes. This groundbreaking soundtrack will be broadcast in the airport’s terminals during the summer, and it will provide travelers with an immersive sound experience as they navigate the world’s most famous transport hub.
The effort is an example of an expanding trend in the airline world towards the employment of soundtracks as part of an overall sonic branding movement. Heathrow is far from alone in adopting the concept, however, with several airlines and airports worldwide having been releasing their own unique soundtracks to strengthen their brand identity and enhance the customer experience.
Riyadh Air launched its revolutionary soundtrack, Sound of a New Era, in an agile move in the transformation of the travel experience with the integration of music and sound to create an unmistakable brand of sound that sticks with the traveler.These soundtracks are created to elicit an emotional response, an element of destination, and brand identification, and provide a more memorable and entertaining experience with the traveler.
Sound is an often-overlooked aspect of the airport environment, but as Rakei’s collaboration with Heathrow demonstrates, it has the power to shape the traveler’s emotional journey and elevate the overall experience. As airports and airlines continue to explore innovative ways to engage with passengers, it’s clear that sound will play an increasingly important role in enhancing the modern travel experience.
The Music for Heathrow track at Heathrow is an original blend of creative energy, cutting-edge technology, and the dynamic rhythms of flight, and it transforms the airport into an audio experience unlike any other. By transforming everyday airport noises into an extraordinary musical track, the track provides an entirely new airport experience, and the journey becomes an audio thrill ride. Getting ready to fly or simply dreaming of trips taken, the soundtrack provides an entirely new interpretation of the airport’s sounds, and excitement, calm, and anticipation become the stars of the show.
UK travelers can now enjoy a new dimension of travel with Jordan Rakei’s music playing across Heathrow, as the immersive soundtrack transforms the airport experience, blending the sounds of travel with creative music to elevate the journey.
For those looking to enjoy the track before their next flight, Music for Heathrow can be streamed now on Jordan Rakei’s SoundCloud account, offering a taste of what travelers can expect when they step into the airport terminals this summer. Ultimately, as airports look to future-proof the traveler experience, sound will be an invaluable resource in designing immersive environments that speak to passengers on an emotional level in new and compelling ways. Heathrow’s partnership with Jordan Rakei is an ideal illustration of how music and sound can redefine the travel experience and challenge thinking about airport atmospheres in innovative terms.
