Tourist

by Seams

Tourist cover art
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  • Digital Album

    Immediate download of Tourist, in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire. Each track also has a short description of it's creation embedded into it's lyrics. Enjoy!

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  • Seams Tote Bag + Digital Download

    Want something physical to go with your MP3?
    Confuse your local supermarket shoppers, and help care for the environment with this screen-printed Seams tote bag.

    Includes immediate download of 4-track album in your choice of MP3 320, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

    Buy Now  ₤5 GBP

    ships within 5 days
    edition of 100
  • Travel Companion Cassette Tape Edition

    Whilst the main digital release of Tourist isn't until 22nd November, I've made a small run of tapes in the style of foreign language travel cassettes, which I made available at my shows, ahead of release.

    I made 20 tapes to sell, manually recording the tapes, and printing the sleeves. Each cassette is numbered and comes with a download code. Short descriptions of each track are embedded in the downloads.

    You'll also receive immediate download of Tourist in your choice of MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

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about

I recorded this EP over the summer whilst working in Berlin.
It was inspired by the outdoor living of the city in the summer, and how much music was intrinsically linked to daily life.

I spent much of my time in Berlin recording the sounds of the city with a tape recorder and my phone. I then based each track on these recordings, attempting to recreate the feeling of being there.

credits

released 22 November 2010
Produced by James Welch
Mastered at The Cutting Suite
Cover photo by Matthias Heiderich
Design by Matt Chlebek

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license

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contact / help

For help with downloads, click here.

For all other inquiries, including help with merch, click here.

Redeem download codes here.

Track Name: Hung Markets
Most Sundays I’d spend my morning walking around the various flea markets of the city. After buying a few cheap keyboards (which all turned out to be broken), I gave up and started recording the buskers instead.

One weekend I saw a woman playing a hang at the markets on my road. The patterns she played were hypnotic and full of momentum. I sat at the front of the crowd and recorded her play for a while and then headed straight back to my room to start this track.
Track Name: Carnival
This track was recorded during my first few weeks in Berlin. Every year, Kreuzberg hosts The Carnival of Cultures, which runs for about 4 days. The entire south of the city was full to the brim with carnival floats, buskers, and dancers. I took my dictaphone with me and recorded the drummers and street performers.

The majority of this track is the sound of a crowd watching some dancers, slowed down. I then found a thumb piano in the room I was staying in and played it over the top, recording it through my laptop’s built in microphone.

And yes, the weird slowed down vocal is me. Embarrassing.
Track Name: Nachtmusik
The main basis of this track was a music box I bought from a toy shop in Prenzlauer Berg. The box played the tune ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’. I recorded the box playing into my laptop mic and cut out a few notes to play with.

After building a few simple patterns, I began to add the drum beat and bassline, also grabbing small vocal stabs from various samples from the previous week. The street noise that starts off the track is actually an old recording from Barcelona, which was still on my dictaphone tape.

If you listen closely, you can hear my friend Dave and I talking...
Track Name: Platz
I wrote this track after seeing a drummer play for some breakdancers at Alexanderplatz. I stood in the crowd and recorded using both my tape player and my phone, one in each hand. The variation in the two recordings created a cool bouncy effect between the left and right channels, which when listening back, makes me feel as if I am standing in the crowd again.

Berlin was ridiculously hot for nearly all of my time there, so the whole EP was written in my bedroom with the windows wide open, and the constantly bustling street below filtering in.