Trains always bring you to the future

_context

This project was created thanks to the Extratonal Residency #01 part of Platform for Extratonality, hosted at Varia.

I’ve spent quite some time on trains during the last few years. I prefer them to any other type of transportation and they have a therapeutic impact on me. They have rhythm, soundscapes, and beautiful sights. The silence here is placed on those many backgrounds that help you get deep inside yourself and your thoughts. Usually, those moments are full of thoughts - memories surfacing from the depts, fantasies circulating your near future in a different place, plans you're trying to make.

One of those sounds is the announcements by the train operators. I’ve been also listening to them in many languages, often not understanding what they say but always knowing they are somewhat like prophecies - they tell you where you will be in a moment and where the train will go after the next stop. The trains always bring us to the future and the train operators tell us what this very close future would look like. Their voices blend into our inner thoughts and create a new soundscape inside our heads. This is what I am excited to explore with my residency at Extratonal.

_Wishlist: I would like to reflect on these thoughts and express my reflections through sound. I would love to explore the relations between time, movement, train travel, inner thoughts and ways of experiencing the journey. I am looking for meditative sonic works that bring these elements into one place. I foresee sonic pieces that lie on the borderline between ambient music, sound poems, sonic art, and experimentation.

_Process: As this residency will be self-facilitated, I envision creating a series of prompts for myself. They will aim to evoke memories, inner thoughts and anticipations for the future. They will be connected to a moment on the train, will be announced and recorded. Tools for this process will be writing journals in the style of stream of consciousness; recording small bits every day; writing short poems; editing and music production on small scales, focusing on small experiments every day (week 0 and week 1). During week 2, I will focus more on creating a structure for the final outcome - probably a very short EP, or something like that (realistically, there is not that much time, so I doubt I will manage to finish more than 3-4 sonic works). During week 3, I will do final recordings/edits/prepare a performance/presentation/publication moments.

For the publishing, I am interested in exploring how to publish the piece and promote it. Thinking of which platforms to use (bandcamp?) and how to sell it.

_residency

   _artist-in-residence: Ål Nik [Alexandra Nikolova // Александра Николова]
   _host: organised by Extratonal: Platform for Extratonality, hosted by Varia, Rotterdam
   _coordinator/care-taker <3: Mitsitron
   _dates: 18 July - 8 August 2024
   _final event: 9 August @Varia

▲ highlights ▲

_Working with sound is much more time-consuming than working with visual and digital mediums. Experiencing the artwork and producing it is so temporal - it is a medium that is entangled with time and patience.
_This project is another example of my mixed-media approach: before I started working on the sound recording, editing and mixing, I worked on the conceptual idea of each piece and wrote a poem per audio track. Each poem was a result of a long reflection on a particular topic, a stream of consciousness writing of my inner thoughts whilst taking the solo train journey.
_I tried different ways to approach the making. For some pieces, I started with the ambient instrument and then built the rest of the sounds. For others, I just put the train announcement recording in the middle and then experimented with what was interesting to support and enhance them.
_In the core and at the beginning of all of the works, there is an inner real talk that informs the sonic piece. Each city is a reflection upon a topic that I've been thinking about and talking with myself while on the solo trip. For instance, Toulouse is about coping with life and challenges, how you find ways to go on and what mechanisms you call upon to deal with it all.
_tba

_artworks

writing poems during the art residency

_process

_brainwriting & stream of consciousness
_short poems
_sonic experiments
_processing train announcement recordings from 2021-2024
_mixing & producing
_illustrations & editing of visuals
_publishing - deciding on platforms and what needs to be done for them
_final event - performing
_promotion

 _instruments  // For the EP, I've created or recorded all of the sounds myself. They were mixed on Ableton Live 11 Intro. Some edits were done on Audacity. The physical instruments used are: an electric fretless guitar (thanks to Mitsitron for sharing theirs with me), a harmonica, a microphone, an iphone, a zoom n1 recorder, a MIDI controller, and my voice for the vocals.

_outcomes

Visual list with all of the sonic pieces in the EP

"Trains Always Bring You To The Future" is an ambient, meditative sonic journey that takes you on a train trip within your inner thoughts. It was created during my Extratonal Residency #01 part of Platform for Extratonality, hosted at Varia (Rotterdam, the Netherlands).

I’ve spent quite some time on trains during the last few years. I prefer them to any other type of transportation and they have a therapeutic impact on me. They have rhythm, soundscapes, and beautiful sights. The inner silence here is placed on top of those many layers that help you get deep inside yourself and your thoughts. Usually, those moments are full of reflection - memories surfacing from the depts, fantasies circulating your near future in a different place, plans you're trying to make.

While creating the sonic works, I reflected on the inner thoughts that emerged while travelling alone and expressed my reflections through sound. I explored relations between time, movement, train travel, inner thoughts, memories, anticipations and ways of experiencing the journey. These sonic artworks lie on the borderline between ambient music, sonic art, field recordings, and experimentation. Each sonic piece comes with a short poem - it is written as lyrics and also visualised on the picture of each track.

_sound artworks

▶▶ Listen on Bandcamp.
▶▶ Listen on Spotify.
▶▶ Listen on Tidal.
▶▶ Listen on Apple Music.
▶▶ Listen on iTunes.

"Trains Always Bring You To The Future" EP consists of seven sonic pieces. Each piece is a train with a destination or a departure point. It also has a topic - a theme I've been reflecting on while working on the artwork. Here is the EP list:

No.	Title	Time	Theme
00	Departure	02:42	The intro is nested in a cosy seat on the train while leaving the station. It sets you out on an intimate and meditative journey to discover and rediscover your deepest thoughts.]
01	Toulouse	04:02	Coping: Toulouse is about coping. With life, with challenges, with yourself. Finding mechanisms to handle it all and be well.]
02	Breda	04:25	Post-Burnout: Breda’s journey depicts the sounds of a post-burnout state. When floating and recovering. Moments of care and healing.]
03	Interlude	01:28	Pausing: This short piece is a moment of taking a breath. To connect with yourself and dive deep into your inner thoughts.]
04	Antwerp	02:36	Faith: What makes you want to live? Against what values do you judge what’s right and wrong? I’ve been contemplating our different faiths in the contemporary world. What if everything we believe in is made up by people just like us? Is this a reason to doubt it or even better for believing?]
05	Hanover	02:08	Fears: Hanover is about our fears. It tells a story about one of my most common nightmares - I often dream of the destructive power of water in various forms. What other fears do we have deep down there?]
06	Rotterdam	03:21	Arrival: The final piece is about arriving at the destination. Everything from your trip is now a memory. It's up to you to decide how to keep those memories and stories so you can access them later. Every arrival is just a stop before your next journey.]

_video

A frame from the "Departure" video

There is a video for the intro piece - Departure.
▶▶ See it on Youtube here.

_visual artoworks

The ticket for the first piece: "Departure"

Besides the sonic works, there are some visual art pieces:

_A cover in a train station board style that lists all of the sonic pieces.
_One "train ticket" for each sonic piece that contains the poem that is connected to it.

_closing event

9th of August
at Varia
doors: 19:00 CET
performance: 19:30-20:00 CET

_about // The final event was organised and taken care of by Extratonal's Mitsitron, Niek and Joseph. The presentation of my final works was a hybrid between a performance, dj mixing set, artist talk, and poetry reading. It took around half an hour. I mixed and narrated all of the seven pieces and did a short introduction of each one of them, bringing context and telling the story & theme of each one of them.

_reflections // After the performance I had the chance to talk with some of the guests.
+ the format of presentation worked well for everyone; what they emphasised was quite enjoyable: perfect length (not too short, nor too long to get tiring); introduction and stories - speaking before each piece; me reading the poems over the sonic pieces.
+ I was especially touched by a comment that the quality of the works was really good <3
+ the sound brought a different aspect to the topic of trains - while a more mechanical and heavy sound would have been expected, the ambient and meditative approach was also relevant and interesting.
🖤 for me, the whole experience was really encouraging and inspiring. The moment of sharing such intimate work is always scary (I was quite anxious before the event), but the Platform for Extratonality and Varia were a safe space for that. I always question if what I am doing has any point - seeing people who enjoy it, reflect on it, and relate to my experiences is truly fulfilling!

_colophon

I would like to express my gratitude to Mitsitron who was a care-taker of my residency; and to Extratonality and Varia who welcomed me in their space. <3

Fonts at the visual works: Sligoil by Ariel Martín Pérez. Distributed by velvetyne.fr. // latin Anonymous Pro. Designed by Mark Simonson (Google font) // cyrillic

All the sonic and visual artworks are created by me. All rights reserved.