Listening Blog #2: Chris Watson’s “El Tren Fantasma”

Welcome back. In last week’s listening blog I responded to Alvin Lucier and Hildegard Westerkamp, and this week my subject is Chris Watson’s El Tren Fantasma.

Doing (minimal) research after my initial listen of the album revealed to me that Watson is primarily a field recording artist who typically releases his works as raw sounds, but on occasion takes the sounds to the studio for projects with Touch Records. El Tren Fantasma is his fourth studio album with Touch, and consists of sounds from a now defunct rail service across Mexico recorded over two decades ago.

It is important for it to be stated that, although the piece still exists in the musique concrète style of using and manipulating recorded sounds from the real world, the recordings on this project have been heavily edited, stylized, and constructed into a narrative. This is effective at creating a wonderfully coherent piece of music, but the listener is not listening to raw audio files or, in some cases, sounds that I don’t think are even meant to resemble the original source or its context.

The album starts and ends with an announcer or station speaker that announces the arrival of the “ghost train”, and introduces the listener to the setting of the work. She is also heard on the last track to close; probably more in reference to the beginning than anything else, to give a heightened sense of coherency to the album. There is another instance of human speech on the album in track 4, sounding like some kind of caller dialing in to a com line. I guess that these are some the few audio samples that may have not been recorded in the “field”, but were rather scripted in a studio.

The sounds of the trains themselves are haunting, deep, and spacious- like the ghost of an ancient locomotive. Harmonies are sometimes heard from pitches of the train, such as whistles or exhausts. However, the recordings are often submerged, looming bass sounds that are so low they almost lose any discernible pitch. Where the “studio magic” really began to appear to me was during more contemporary moments in the album such as on track 4, “El Divisadero”. A very recognizable, repetitive rhythm emerges around the half-way mark of the track from the sound of the rail. A stereo “ping-pong” delay effect on the rail really emphasizes this groove, and the rhythmic setting is even further pushed when a rather monotone “thump” starts to kick in every 4 beats or so. Sitting above it is a floating harmonic instance that seems to sustain indefinitely. I think this track is a great example of the more “dream-like” energy El Tren Fantasma tries to present to its listener by stylizing the real-world sounds to a more surrealist state.

The sonic setting isn’t only following the moving train. Track 9, for example, seems to lack locomotive recordings entirely. The scene shifts to somewhere outdoors in the wilderness, similar to the images Westerkamp painted in her soundscapes last week. The chirping sounds of the forest or jungle is so present it’s almost deafening. About half-way through this over ten-minute track is yet another peculiar scene change, yet this time far more subtle. The sounds of the wilderness are still loud and clear, but now partially obscured by the sound of what is perhaps a distant road or highway. Something creaking is nearby, such as an old wooden chair or door. At one point, some kind of vehicle seems to fly past, such as a helicopter or airplane. The sound echos throughout the entire area the soundscape creates

The final track closes the album with a much more linear and familiar sound. The sound of the train in this is dreamy but still very present. The noise from the train reverberates and harmonizes with itself to the extent that it almost sounds like some kind of cathedral choir. The audio slowly draws in and out, reflecting the feeling of being in a dream or drifting away.

Overall, I thought the work was very adventurous and succeeded in “taking me on a trip” on El Tren Fantasma. Indeed, the sounds I heard may have not been the true, raw audio files from the train itself. But Watson’s manipulation of the sounds, in my opinion, succeeds at presenting deeper, hidden stories from the locomotive without sacrificing the integrity of the artifact that the empirical audio may not be able to tell on its own.