Alternative Sounds Of The Summer

Soundwalk Collective is an experimental sound group founded in 2000 by Stephan Crasneanscki in New York and later joined by Simone Merli. The Collective collaborates with a number of prolific artists and musicians including poet and singer Patti Smith and film-director Jean Luc-Godard. The group also co-founded The Analogue Foundation — whom Globe-Trotter collaborated with in 2018 to create the luxurious portable Listening Station. While we patiently wait for the world to open its doors, we asked them to tell us the songs that evoke the spirit of the season

Brian Eno — And Then So Clear
This is the second track from the 23rd studio album by Brian Eno, Another Day On Earth, and the first Eno album that contains vocals in more than two decades. This is a summer ballad, in which Eno pitch-shifted his voice up an octave through a gender-changing function to create a vocoder-like effect. We’ve recently encountered this album while doing research over voice treatments, this song particularly stayed with us as it evokes a sense of air — a bright and high elevation and longing of summer ahead.

Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith, featuring Philip Glass and the Sufi group of Sheikh Ibrahim — Eternity
This song repeats: “It is the sea, mixed with sun” over and over again. Following the tradition of Sufism, Patti Smith recites a fragment of Arthur Rimbaud's poem Eternity in call and response to the Sufi masters’ chants and Philip Glass’s Wurlitzer piano. Soundwalk Collective’s composition, is an homage to Rimbaud, recorded in Abyssinia, the artists push each other to reach a higher plane where they dance with one another, entranced.

Chris Watson — El Tren Fantasma
In El Tren Fantasma, the journey of the ‘ghost train’ is recreated, evoking memories of a recent past, capturing the atmosphere, rhythms and sounds of human life, wildlife and the journey itself along the tracks of one of Mexico’s greatest engineering projects.

Moondog — Conversation and Music at 51st St 6th Ave (New York City)
Moondog, was an American musician, composer, theoretician, poet and inventor of several musical instruments. He was blind from the age of 16. He lived in New York City from the late 1940s until 1972, and during this time he could often be found on 6th Avenue, between 52nd and 55th Street, wearing a cloak and a horned helmet, sometimes busking or selling music, but often just standing silently on the sidewalk. This piece is from his 1956 album More Moondog and is composed of field recordings captured by him on the corner of 51st Street and 6th Avenue in New York City during the summer. We are particularly connected to this track as it reflects the same background of our first field recordings in NYC at the beginnings of Soundwalk Collective.

Luc Ferrari – Presque Rien N° 2 Ainsi Continue La Nuit Dans Ma Tête Multiple
Luc Ferrari was a French composer of Italian heritage and a pioneer in musique concrète (music constructed by mixing recorded sounds) and electroacoustic music. Presque Rien N° 2 is a quintessential sound of the summer. When Ferrari finished composing it he wrote: ‘Depiction of a landscape of night that the recording engineer tries to encircle with his microphones, but the night surprises the “sound hunter” and penetrates his head.’

The Globe-Trotter × Analogue Foundation
Listening Station

Discover more about the Globe-Trotter X Analogue Foundation Listening Station project here.

To track the global journey of the Listening Station, you can follow it on the Analogue Foundation’s Instagram page here.