Initial idea from friend Taj Campbell, Tracks is a series of experiments where songs were connected with travel. The initial eventual idea was to potentially have “mix tapes” one would be able to listen to while they were riding the train or subway, each particular song selected or written to fit from one station to the next, changing periodically. In this way everyone regularly commuting to work would share a music experience made for their ride and visitors would be able to experience something unique to the trip. It would also become an avenue for local musicians to share their work with a wide audience, writing a piece made for one station to the next.

The idea is especially relevant where ideas of identity and pride are connected to landmarks and experiences in a city. While this isn’t unique to trains we loved the cute imagery of laying a figurative music reel along the length of the train tracks and riding along that reel. The hope was that train companies would be equally incentivized to help create this experience and support the musicians who were a part of the experience.

Experiments that emerged:

• Mapping songs to the entire city space around you, as you walked/biked/drove/bussed the songs closest to you playing, further experiments with playing with speed relating to playback speed (nothing unsafe, don’t worry 😉)

• Finding best fits to train tracks from a person’s phone music library, mapping it to the Tokyo and NYC subway and train lines.