CM von Hausswolff and Chandra Shukla Complete the Third Travelogue for Touch

Touch has released Travelogue [Thailand], the third entry in a series that sends two sound artists to a single location to produce an audio diary. CM von Hausswolff and Chandra Shukla spent nine days in and around Chiang Mai, moving from hotels to museums to temples, ending their route in the Lanna Kingdom. They recorded rivers, forests, monasteries, and the activity of local tribes. The four tracks on the album shape that raw archive into something far less predictable than documentation.

The opening piece, “Nók Bpàa,” layers insect hum, traffic, and a swelling drone. An abrupt motor sound cuts through, setting the album’s logic: no sense of safety from sudden intrusion. The artists have noted that the diaries do not avoid “noise laden cacophony,” and that principle holds. Temple bells collide with monkeys, machinery with birdcalls. The edit keeps the listener inside the same disorientation one might feel navigating an unfamiliar city.

“Naga” arrives with rushing water and ceremonial voice, a sharper entry that quickly falls into near-silence, then reemerges with children’s chatter, adult conversation, and bells. The human presence becomes central, folded into the drone and current. “Muaythai Changmai” pushes further into the street, capturing a festival’s amplified announcements and a raucous market crowd. English words surface momentarily, then vanish. A band plays, another musician interrupts with a sound like bagpipes, and percussion slices through. The effect is less collage than the experience of walking through an afternoon and letting the ears take whatever comes.

The closing “Wai Phra Kao Wat” turns inward. Sustained chants and temple gongs move to the front of the mix, and the pacing slows enough for the earlier overload to settle. Forest sounds return, steady and quiet. It’s the one point on the record where the cover’s image of serenity aligns with the sound, and it makes sense only after the turbulence that precedes it.