A coffee-table book whose soundtrack changes with every page

What if you could travel the world and not even have to leave your home? Well, that's the idea behind Slow Atlas, a new project combining immersive nature films with original music. And joining me this morning is Austin Music musician, producer Walker Lukens. And tell me more about this project. And you've got a free event coming up to even celebrate it. But this is so cool. Thank you. Yeah, so this is Slow Atlas, Iceland, the book, and what's cool about this book, I went there with a photographer, Chad Wadsworth, he took a bunch of photos, and then I made music to go with the photos, and how this book works is... You can actually listen as you look at the book and the soundtrack will change as you turn the pages. That is so cool. And the other part of this project is we actually went there with videographers as well. We captured all this footage and I made these hour-long films, gave them to other musicians who made soundtracks. Oh, cool. And so on November 20th, we're doing a free show at Central Machine Works where we're going to show parts of these films and different musicians are going to do like a Do like a live soundtrack to them. Very neat. And so what do you want people to take away from this as they're kind of immersing themselves into the book and the music and all of it? You know, there's so many ways to listen to music now. So one of the most amazing things about the world we live in today, you can stream music, you can still buy records and CDs. You literally hear music when you walk into every store, restaurant, everything. I think the thing that we've lost is kind of this ritual. And the unique experience of like putting on a record because we just have so much now. So the hope of this book is that people experience these photos and music and just really get lost in it. And with these films, it's basically the same idea, right? Like you can be transported to this other world and it's unlike... That oversaturated feeling we're getting all the time, that's how we experience it. So trying to create sort of a ritual around it. And I think it's really cool you're doing this too because some people, myself included, I don't know if I'm ever going to go to Iceland. Yeah. But now I can have it in my hands and kind of have this whole experience at home. That's the other hope. So we're going to make more of these books. The first one's in Iceland, but we're hoping to go other places and capture that feeling. And what was it like there? You said you went in March and it was freezing. We did go in March. It was below zero the whole time. So nice. And covered in ice. I had a funny moment where I slipped walking out of the recording studio door three days in a row. And I was laughing. I was like, oh, it's called Iceland for a reason. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, literally covered. The whole country was covered in ice. Oh my gosh, that sounds kind of like my nightmare. Yeah. I mean, it looks beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. It's gorgeous, but- It's also amazing because there There's really no landscape quite like that in the lower 48. It was just blues, whites, brown rock. That was the only color. I mean, it's gorgeous. It's a different type of gorgeous. And do you have a favorite part of the trip or the book, music that you've collabed with it? The unintentional, unplanned best part of the trip was we were trying to circle the island. And the weather changes very, very quickly because it's up in the Arctic Circle. Right. So we... We barely got to the town we were hoping to stay in, and then it became very clear we weren't going to be able to leave the next day because a snowstorm was coming. So we were snowed into this little fishing village at the end of Iceland for two days. There's a lot of photos from that in here. It was just so special because you knew, we knew as it was happening that we would never be there again, and we just feel like we're at the end of the world, yeah. That's so cool. Okay, in the event that's coming up, Briefly, give me a little details on that. Central Machine Works, November 20th. It's from 7 to 11, music from 8 to 11. Free show. And you can buy the book. You can also go to radioposter.com and buy the book. Look. Or you can buy records and see live music. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me this morning. Thanks for having me. I need to sit down and... Do the whole thing and enjoy it. I really appreciate what you are doing. Thank you so much for having me. All right, thanks so much, and make sure you stay with us because we will be right back after the break.