Exploring AIR Studios Montserrat: Echoes of a musical legacy.

What remains of the former studio

The driveway leading up to the studio

In the hills of Montserrat, surrounded by dense jungle and overlooking the Caribbean Sea, sits the abandoned AIR Studios — a once-state-of-the-art recording facility that played a quiet but important role in shaping the sound of the 1980s.

I visited the site during a trip to the island in 2016, curious to see what remained of a place that had once hosted some of the biggest names in music. Built in 1979 by legendary Beatles producer George Martin, AIR Studios Montserrat was designed to offer artists a secluded and relaxed environment to record albums away from the pressures of major cities and commercial studios. For about a decade, it was a creative haven — the birthplace of Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms, The Police’s Ghost in the Machine, and Elton John’s Too Low for Zero, among many others.

The swimming pool's diving board where Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Corey Hart, Elton John, and Sting once stood.

Today, the building stands in a state of decay. After suffering extensive damage from Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the studio was never reopened. The subsequent volcanic eruptions in the 1990s — while not directly impacting the site — further isolated it, as much of the island’s southern region was evacuated and eventually designated an exclusion zone.

The Mansions fireplace