Heathrow introduces background soundtrack... of airport sounds!

CapeTalk's Sara-Jayne Makwala King is joined by correspondent Gavin Grey for The UK Report.

Airports tend to be busy, noisy places with passengers rushing around to make the necessary arrangements and catch their flights.

Now Heathrow just outside London has taken a step to make the airport sound even more like an airport.

It's introducing a background soundtrack apparently aimed at getting passengers into the travel mood.

The airport commissioned Grammy nominee Jordan Rakei to create 'Music for Heathrow', which is being played on a loop in all terminals.

They say it's the first ever created entirely with the sounds of an airport.

Gavin Grey describes the move, and Heathrow's press release, as 'bizarre'.

"When you're going through the airport there are lots of different noises - announcements of course, the sounds of the escalators and lifts, the baggage belts, the  rushed footsteps of people as they run across the tiled floor trying to make their flight.... but now the biggest flight hub here in the UK wants to make the experience even more realistic by playing a looped soundtrack, OF an airport."

Gavin Grey, UK Correspondent

The track also features sound from famous movie scenes.

"These include passengers tapping their feet in Bend It Like Beckham and the beeps of a security scanner from Love Actually. It's conceived as a tribute to Brian Eno's 1979 album Music for Airports; ambient music which is 'a genre which is supposed to provide a calming influence on listeners, while also being easy to ignore'."

Gavin Grey, UK Correspondent

The story's not not easy for HIM to ignore, Grey quips, because he's wondering how much money this is costing.

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the UK Report (Heathrow discussion at 17:34)