// 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 1 . Secret towns in pure form, uniquely as one continuous journey.

// 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.

0:00 Gare du Nord

2:57 Periscope Forest

4:26 Discovery after Dark

7:45 Stranded Awake

10:35 Majesty of the Minute

16:31 Foot of the Carpathians

22:17 Up Jakupica

23:55 Hamstrung

25:02 Wheelhouse of Wonder (Welcome Home)

29:44 Epilogue

// Station C // Track Notes

01 – Gare du Nord

Claire, I’m writing you from a train station in Paris, which is less a place to be, than a total displacement. For 3 days it’s been raining over us, a constant mist that soaks my head immediately upon peeking outside. So I stay in, looking out, confined by my own feet. It’s my exterminating angel. I feel lonely and extinguished.

This song comes from the illusion of loneliness.

An internal compass is somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered.

Solo piano by Eric Pan, recorded at Imperial College London.

Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: vflefevre (Krakow) / barcelonetasonora (Barceloneta) / avakas (Greece) / Rapoix / Eelke

02 – Periscope Forest

Claire, Taipei is glorious...it’s as though the people can just stay still and the food teems around us. I pop my head up above the crowd to see if a dessert cart might be coming around again. I’ll be ready next time. What a huge village. Everywhere must be fun because either teenagers or workers are laughing. Under the veneer I can tell we’re all meerkats.

This song comes from the vibrancy of chaos.

Solo piano by Eric Pan, recorded at the Hsin-Chu Hospital Towers.

Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: adamb1026 (Belfast) / hafdisgitar (Reykjavik) / Pfannkuchn (Hamburg)

03 – Discovery after Dark

Claire, I met someone. She talks nonstop, and interrupts me all the time, just the way you do. I love it. We met on an overnight train to D.C. and immediately started chatting about why Camus thinks traveling reaches its fullest potential when we are acting from our fears. Nonsense, I think. So then she disagrees with me on everything, it’s such a thrill. I wish I could see the look on your face right now.

This song comes from sharing a bubble with a new person.

Piano trio recorded at TRIXX Studios, Berlin, with Eric Pan (piano), Nir Sabag (drums), and Hugo Reydet (bass).

Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: fryzu82 / harrybates01 / richists / sirderf / thaighaudio

04 – Stranded Awake

Claire. Have you ever felt so lost, even your sense of self is in question? I’m in an attic in the Haight. I’m running through a forest of thoughts and anxieties. But I don’t think they’re my own. You always talk about opening your heart & even your pores to the world...that’s the best way to get soaked by other people’s worries no? The ambient malaise just floating around. With this fog I can’t see what I’m supposed to do with my time here. Beam me a sign through your tropical sunglasses.

This song comes from the grand search for meaning.

Solo Fender Rhodes by Eric Pan, recorded in Brooklyn.

Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: jmbphilmes / animationisaac / ultradust (Seoul) / InspectorJ (U.K.) / schneiderfilmchen

05 – Majesty of the Minute

Claire, I think I’ve mastered time. If you want something to go by quickly, just snap your fingers. Now if you want something to go by slowly that’s harder, but it can be done too. I’m doing it right now. The evening is so pleasant here in Sedona, when the desert cools, and you just see the silhouettes of the saguaros. We all hold a pose sometimes. This specific dusk, I think it can last forever, if I allow it. By the time you read this, I’ll still be here.

This song comes from the immensity of the smallest measure of peace.

Solo piano by Eric Pan, recorded in Julian, CA.

Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: Freqman / matiasromero / ultradust (Seoul) / Thalamus_Lab (Great Barrier Reef )

06 – Foot of the Carpathians

Claire, we have to attend the circus together sometime. I was wandering in Krakow, entirely aimless, when two fellow travelers welcomed me on their journey out of town. Come sunset, I’m surrounded by nomads making a caravan camp near the mountains, trying to sing songs in Ukrainian with them. Bonfire parties with guitar music transcend all cultural boundaries. It’s a vast country out here, and the universe continues its expansion.

This song comes from wilderness.

Piano trio recorded at TRIXX Studios, Berlin, with Eric Pan (piano), Nir Sabag (drums), and Hugo Reydet (bass).

Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: spt3125 / stefanhoevenaar / colinsullivan (California) / unfa

07 – Up Jakupica

Clairest, Hello from Solunska Glava, the sun has probably kept me lively for several days, I’m delirious with joy. My new favorite word is teleférique. Blanket me in bird feathers, I’ll sail straight to you on one continuous breeze. That’s how fortune- filled I feel. It’s so idyllic on these grassy peaks, each roaming animal more furry than the next. I’m convinced the ancient Macedonians basked like these stones and stored the heat in their bodies, humming all the while.

This song comes from childlike flights of fancy.

Solo piano by Eric Pan, recorded in Berlin at Maria’s house.

Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: unfa / MrAuralization / Skjor1 (Cornwall)

08 – Hamstrung

Claire, the magic in this world, is it evenly spread? It could be hidden in easter eggs, or carefree like dandelions when scattered. I hope it looks after us from time to time. I’m in the cloudforest of Monteverde, nursing a heartbreak that should have been gone by now. I think it’s a burrower. It’s my secret companion no one knows about unless they cut me open and read my tree rings.

This song comes from being severed from the source.

Solo piano by Eric Pan, recorded in Liberia, Costa Rica.

Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: reinsamba (Karlsruhe) / JonathanTremblay / elliotrambach (Detroit, MI)

09 – Wheelhouse of Wonder (Welcome Home)

Claire, I think it’s wild that the feeling of home can change. It can become untethered from geography, it can become a person. It can even disappear completely. I think I’ve experienced all these variations. Can it be somewhere I’ve never even visited, except only in my mind? This is Phuket, Thailand, and nowhere. When I was a child I built a toy village, and would imagine becoming tiny and moving in with them. Can home be the whole world?

This song comes from the encounter with the other.

Piano trio recorded at TRIXX Studios, Berlin, with Eric Pan (piano), Nir Sabag (drums), and Hugo Reydet (bass).

Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: satiw4c (New South Wales)

10 – Epilogue

Scored with found sounds credited to these curators: SFindigo (San Francisco) / AGFX

// 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