El Tren Fantasma: ambient recording of a ghostly train journey


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Trainjourn

Chris Watson was a founder of the seminal 1970s experimental music/performance art group Cabaret Voltaire who has since become a highly-respected ambient sound recordist for television, film, and radio.

More than a decade ago, Watson spent a month on a train traveling across Mexico with a BBC TV crew documenting the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México's last continuous passenger service across the country from the Pacific to Atlantic coast. Watson has since gone back and cut his ambient audio archive of the trip into an acoustic journey, "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." The recording, titled "El Tren Fantasma," was broadcast on Radio BBC 4 last year. This month, the Touch. records label is releasing El Tren Fantasm on CD and a 12" vinyl of two remixes. Here's a sampler of the album:

chris watson – el tren fantasma (album preview) by experimedia

In the US, you'll find it at Forced Exposure.

Also available from Experimedia.net, providers of the album preview above!

More information at the Touch. records news post, "Chris Watson "El Tren Fantasma" Album and "El Tren Fantasma – The Signal Man's Mix" Remix 12"

"Turning the World Into Art: The world of field recordings with Chris Watson, Ernst Karel, and Art Rosenbaum" (Pitchfork)