Fugitive Traces

Fugitive Traces is a sound album released in both digital(opens in new tab) and CD(opens in new tab) editions with an accompanying PDF booklet that collages Werner Herzog’s voiceover commentary from over a dozen of his films with electronic, chamber, and rock music to both pay homage to one of the world’s most visionary filmmakers and critique an artistic practice rooted in contradiction and frequent disaster.

You know the stories. Werner Herzog exploited native workers to clear a swath of rainforest and pull a steamship up a mountain in Peru. Werner Herzog climbed an active volcano on an evacuated island, and then claimed embarrassment that the volcano had not erupted. Werner Herzog brought about the deaths of 10,000 tame rats he’d smuggled into the Netherlands for the filming of Nosferatu.

The album’s accompanying “lyrics” comprise an essay that explores the consequences of being seduced by Herzog’s unique brand of recklessness, documenting a disaster on the set of young filmmaker Sacksteder’s Silo.

Tracks from Fugitive Traces previously appeared on Sleepingfish(opens in new tab), The Collagist(opens in new tab), Textsound(opens in new tab), Quarterly West(opens in new tab), and Queen Vic Knives. The Young Vish is joined on this album by Chris Westhoff (guitar), Mark Dickson / Nests(opens in new tab) (guitar, mandolin), Hannah Robbins (cello), and Brian DiBlassio (piano).