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All Montserrat AIR Studio Ruins
AO Edited

AIR Studio Ruins

George Martin's Caribbean recording studio now rots within the shadow of an active volcano.

Montserrat

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Kerry Wolfe
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  Photography by Shane Thoms
  Photography by Shane Thoms
  Photography by Shane Thoms
  Photography by Shane Thoms
  Photography by Shane Thoms
The recording equipment is still in place.   Chuck Stanley
  Chuck Stanley
So many legends recorded here.   Chuck Stanley
Scattered records.   sarah glidden
The studio ruins in 2011.   sarah glidden
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About

The ruins of Beatles producer George Martin's Montserrat recording studio now crumble within the shadow of a volatile active volcano that's been wreaking havoc on the island since the 1990s.

Dried mud and ash cake the buildings, and murky rainwater fills the outdoor swimming pool. Wasp nests plug various nooks and hang from the ceiling as tangles of vegetation climb the walls. Forgotten bits of the recording equipment that used to produce so many albums rot inside.

You can’t tell by looking at it now, but the grimy complex was once a hot spot for the musical greats of the 1980s. George Martin, the famous English record producer and musician who was sometimes called the "fifth Beatle," opened AIR Montserrat on the Caribbean island in 1979. It was a branch of Associated Independent Recording (AIR), the recording company he co-founded.

Martin’s island oasis studio was soon one of the most prolific recording studios of its era, cranking out a total of 76 albums. Musical legends like the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Buffett, Paul McCartney, and Michael Jackson recorded within its state-of-the-art walls. Musicians spent days or weeks creating their records at what was then a small sliver of Caribbean paradise.

But only a decade after the celebrated studio opened, its life soon came to an abrupt end. When Hurricane Hugo swept across Montserrat in 1989, the storm devastated much of the island and forced the studio to shutter. Then, only six years later, the Soufrière Hills volcano erupted, bombarding the land with lava flows and thick layers of ash. (Jimmy Buffett’s album Volcano, which he recorded in the studio, was named for the then-dormant volcano.) The ongoing volcanic eruptions have made nearly half of the island uninhabitable.

The decaying ruins of the studio stand near the fringe of the exclusion zone. Now too fragile to safely walk within, the studio bears little, if any at all, resemblance to its original grandeur. 

Related Tags

Ruins Music History Disaster Areas Islands Pop Culture

Know Before You Go

AIR Studio is fenced-off and aggressively marked with no-trespassing signs. But thankfully, there are many alternatives to experiencing the impressive recording history of the island including 1) viewing the studio from afar from the nearby volcano observatory, 2) visiting the Hilltop Coffee House, a non-profit owned by long-time Montserrat residents that include informative displays on AIR Studio, or 3) visiting Olveston House, the former home of George Martin that's now a hotel and restaurant that includes Beatles photographs.

Community Contributors

Added By

Kerry Wolfe

Edited By

tylercole, erjeffery, Canadianatpar, Meg

  • tylercole
  • erjeffery
  • Canadianatpar
  • Meg

Published

June 6, 2018

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Sources
  • https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/28/george-martin-air-studio-montserrat-paul-mccartney-stevie-wonder
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Independent_Recording
  • http://www.messynessychic.com/2016/03/09/the-studio-that-made-rock-and-roll-history-is-rotting-away-on-a-caribbean-island/
  • http://www.airstudios.com/about-us/history/air-montserrat/
  • I passed this article on to a friend of mine who was living there at the time. Tyese were her comments. "One error in the article - the volcano that devastated the island was not a dormant volcano. It started as a brand new volcano right on the beach - we heard the lava breaking its way through the crust. It sounded like a jet engine - and took about three weeks to break through. After about six months we would go with picnic baskets at night to watch the lava emission starting to create the mountain - and it go bigger and bigger and bigger, now it is the highest peak on the island surpassing Chances Peak then the highest mountain at about 3,000 ft
AIR Studio Ruins
Friths Road
Montserrat
16.741216, -62.214834

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