DESCRIPTION:
New York City's newer computerized subway cars, first introduced about five years ago, have a new kind of power transformer that, when the train starts up, makes a series of tones that sound very musical, frequently identified as the opening notes to "Somewhere," from West Side Story. I recorded those sounds, and many others, in the subway last month, and shot accompanying video, and created a song out of the field recordings, combining them with harmonica, guitar, and some percussion loops, although most of the rhythm bed is looped track noise.

The animated artwork you see at the two-minute mark is the wonderful "Masstransiscope, by artist and filmmaker Bill Brand. The abandoned subway station shown at the end is the Cortlandt Street stop on the R/W, one of the World Trade Center stops abandoned after 9/11. I used to get off the train there every day to go to work.