Transit is an open (or closed) invitation to contemplate. From the excitement of arrival or the impending trepidation and dread of reaching a destination you’d sooner forget, the best journeys are characterised by extremes of emotion. Balancing the premise of opportunity against his own burgeoning isolation, Duncan Bailey found one train ride in particular afforded him the time to reflect, and inspired him to create.
“I was going to Germany on a rainy, foggy afternoon in early December, 2008 to use a technicality to extend my student visa,” he explains. “I was sat next to the window, on the train from Salzburg to Munich, listening to Ulrich Schnauss on my iPod and leaning on the glass watching the towns and farmland hurrying past.
“Living in a new country, I was feeling very alone and depressed, but something about the ride to and from Munich inspired me and made me realize how many possibilities lay around me, no matter how alone I was.”
Unchained and unencumbered, Duncan found exploit in isolation and ‘Rosenheim’ captures the sodden grey view, and initial state of mind, with a musing familiarity.
Pushed by a persistent drum beat that drives the momentum and monotony of the journey, drip-drop percussion gives ‘Rosenheim’ a rainy glaze, as the melody meditatively drifts and the kilometres wistfully blur by.
Contemplative window gazes, little thoughts and introspection cloud the transit and make the time and distance on this passage poignantly redundant. But who’s counting when this is the pensive, yet hopeful, soundtrack of a journey to anywhere. (Words by Reef Younis)