// Station A // Overview
Travel Poems is music for explorers. Step aboard here, to embark – together we'll roam city and sea and stars.
This is the complete LP for Travel Poems . Chapter 2 . The night sea in pure form, uniquely as one continuous journey.
As of this pressing, there are 3 chapters of Travel Poems, each a distinct story.
// Station B // Waypoints
The air is made of music.
Atoms play, particles dance, ripe notes fall from shaking trees. Wherever we go, melodies appear — soundtracks begin performing themselves.
This collection of Travel Poems was composed around the world, recorded on dozens of pianos, each song carrying, bottled, the essence of a place in a peculiar moment. Each song is a postcard.
Every postcard comes from somewhere. Just as important, the recipient of a postcard is, however faintly and briefly, transported to the location+mind coordinates of its authorship.
So it might seem.
// Station C // Track Notes
0:00 de Lune Mécanique
1:52 Loss
3:28 The Storm Heaves in the Distance
8:16 Oak Island
11:22 Teufelssee Tower
17:19 Fine Day to Risk It All
20:46 On Old Delancey
22:35 Noguchi Beach
28:22 Turtle on the Moon
31:34 Epilogue
01 – de Lune Mécanique
dear Claire, the day is unwound, like the springs of a clock, slowing to a stop. Your words pass through me when I see a sky filled with clouds, those really big ones, when they are the size of gods and it seems impossible that they might dissipate, but of course they do, the moment we stop noticing. I wish to cultivate that magic ... the ability to traverse into another realm, under the illusion of disappearance.
This song comes from memories of the first caretaker.
Solo Fender Rhodes by Eric Pan, recorded in Cemetery Friedhof Lilienthalstraße, Berlin, Germany.
Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: Eircom / Silencyo / Leandros.Ntounis / Rhapsodize / FractalStudios
02 – Loss
Claire, you once said that life is not complicated, but impossible to understand. I feel it now. I know this is mourning and yet I’ve no idea how to mourn. I don’t know if I even existed in the same universe as she did. You know, these libraries of shared memories, I can roam the hallways endlessly. They’re transcendent. So when I also die, this architecture still stands. Sunlight pools on the courtyard stones, and streams through the wood window frames. The garden sprouts with flowers anew even without witness.
This song comes from the universal constant.
Solo piano by Eric Pan, recorded in Greenwich Village, New York.
Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: Lgarrett / Vampirella17 / Glaneur de sons / Leosalom / Northern87
03 – The Storm Heaves in the Distance
Claire, is there anything so exciting as an approaching conflagration? I invite you to join me: burrow NOW through this postcard, following the twists and spins of this very personalized, one-of-a-kind wormhole I have hand-crafted for you (just say “yes” to wending your way through time and space™), and let’s climb above the McKibben Lofts to watch the incoming fury together (popcorn included).
This song comes from the angel protectorate.
Recorded at TRIXX Studios, Berlin, with Eric Pan (Fender Rhodes), Nir Sabag (drums), and Hugo Reydet (bass).
Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: Juskiddink / Therabidfrog / FlatHill / YleArkisto / Yoyodaman234 / SpliceSound / InspectorJ
04 – Oak Island
Claire, this is going to drive you crazy, so be it (ha). I want you to tell me more about that kiss you shared with a stranger who rode up on her bike near the Williamsburg bridge. Aren’t there any extra details you have been keeping secret, or that you can remember in a flash when prompted spontaneously, oh for example, now?? It’s such a crucial parable for our times I think. The hero we need, etc. Hello from Ometepe where the water is divine.
This song comes from conspiratorial love and its hidden excitements.
Recorded at Douglass Studios, Brooklyn, with Eric Pan (piano), Sebastian Chiriboga (drums), and Dean Torrey (bass).
Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: TheWorkingBamboo / CasaAsiaSons
05 – Teufelssee Tower
Claire my sweet, I have been blessed with extraordinary luck. One part of it is knowing you are somewhere, ear bent in kindness and infinite wisdom, my lifeline even amid the most absurd times. The other part is — guess who just played a pipe organ from 1435? I can’t even believe that is a possible year that once was like a “thing”. Just imagine walking down the street and getting cross at some young adult punks who grew up in the 1420s.
This song comes from the deep, infinite wellspring of irreverence.
Solo piano by Eric Pan, recorded in Valais, Switzerland.
Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: Owl / Thatjeffcarter / Staikov / DisasterServices / Genghis attenborough / Freesoundjon01 / Pulswelle / Klankbeeld
06 – Fine Day to Risk It All
Claire, your letters came in a bundle all at once, for which I bear fault due to my confusing forwarding address situation. I’m nowhere near the University of Latvia anymore. I have been living underground as part of a “sleep experiment”, a community of people with alarmingly different histories. It’s as idyllic as life can be without any access to sunlight. Did I say the crowd is absolutely delightful? I need to get out of here.
This song comes from one’s personal fight for freedom.
Recorded at TRIXX Studios, Berlin, with Eric Pan (piano), Nir Sabag (drums), and Hugo Reydet (bass).
Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: Martypinso / Venaportae / MDRivet
07 – On Old Delancey
Claire, there is a pair of orange blossoms here in Seville, that are so vibrant, standing next to them transported me to one magical spring afternoon when you and I ate ginormous gelatos while biking dangerous speeds down through Manhattan to Red Hook. Of course you remember I abandoned you at the concert later that night (I’m still sorryyy, though isn’t it wild what drama we invented on the reg) BUT! do you also remember the music? Those were the most gorgeous out-of-tune folk songs I ever heard or will ever hear in my life.
This song comes from a love unbound by time.
Solo piano by Eric Pan, recorded in Valais, Switzerland.
Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: Tams_kp / Ecfike
08 – Noguchi Beach
Claire, I am writing to you from a treehouse near a hydroelectric dam, on the edge of Montana lilting to the Canadian north. Have you found a cure for your restlessness? I have recently discovered that I am most capable of improvising when at peace, and somehow it works the other way too: noodling around on a musical instrument, or in a well-stocked kitchen, delivers me into calm like fine mists upon a rainforest. When the polyphony of life is hard to endure, let go? I’m so awkward in the role of advice-giver. But I’m sending you pine needles anyway and they can speak for me from here on out.
This song comes from constant rediscovery.
Solo Fender Rhodes by Eric Pan, recorded in Saint Malo, France.
Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: Q.K. / Dobroide / LukeIRL / Benboncan / LG / InspectorJ / Soundskeep / Leady
09 – Turtle on the Moon
Claire, when you paint, do you ever feel you are being painted? Like any sense of channeling or interpreting or in some way working in the context of a greater force. When we first breached the clouds on this flight, I could see the setting sun and full moon on opposite sides of the plane, bringing me in visceral contact with the cosmic oneness. You might tell me it’s a trick of the brain, or just a component of the powerful stories we tell ourselves. (Your voice rings clearly in my head, I only saw you six hours ago.) But for a moment I was in the center of creation, and let me tell you: though we don’t realize it, we are actually always there.
This song comes from the sense of limitless possibility.
Solo piano by Eric Pan, recorded in Steinway Hall, 57th Street, New York.
Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: Loopbasedmusic / __O
10 – Epilogue
Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: Manuel Calurano / Rmutt / Andy_Gardner
// Station D // Collector Perks
This is a 1/1 Catalog NFT album (minted uniquely as one continuous track) composed, performed, and pressed by Eric Pan (pandelic.eth).
Every owner of a pandelic.eth Catalog NFT also receives unlimited, “golden ticket” download access to Eric's entire published music catalog, in resolutions up to MP3 V0 and lossless WAV. As of this pressing, this includes the following:
+ Travel Poems . Chapter 1 . Secret towns (LP)
+ Travel Poems . Chapter 2 . The night sea (LP)
+ Travel Poems . Chapter 3 . There is no path back (LP)
+ Lullabies of the Pleiades (EP)
+ goodnight margaret wise brown (single)
+ the year the shipwreck became beautiful (single)
+ Extras: full-resolution cover art, liner notes, music videos
Every collector with golden-ticket status also has access to Eric Pan’s future music+extras as they become published. Collectors ready to redeem downloads can email gm@ericpan.org at any time for access, as well as in case of any questions.
More expansive and exclusive perks will be unveiled over time.
// Station E // Co-conspirators and Credits
Trilogy album recorded in countries across four continents by Eric Pan and Brian Trahan
Mixed by Brian Trahan in New York and Berlin
Mastered by Ruairi O’Flaherty in Los Angeles
Restated and categorized credits for found-sound collaborators at https://travelpoems.com
Album artwork by Krys Unverzagt
Released under Falling Sea
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