After two years of intermittent work I finally completed putting together an album of TravelEcho’s music. This has been a labor of love, transferring songs and pieces of songs I found on practice cassettes and minidiscs I found in a storage box. I did editing, noise reduction and mastering on the songs to the best of my ability - a very educational process. Still, most of these are transferred from 40 year old cassette tapes, originally recorded without professional equipment. And yet they are wonderful songs.
I don’t know how much she talked about it here, but TravelEcho was a singer/songwriter/guitarist and, earlier in her life, played and sang professionally at venues around Toronto. Her career in music was cut short when she was involved in a car accident that caused paralysis and numbness in one of her arms and she was unable to play for a couple of years. Nevertheless she continued singing and playing for herself, for friends, for family until a few weeks before her passing.
The title of the album is Songs of a Swan, for reasons that are explained on the album landing page.
I know she would want her music to be shared with her friends here. This music is freely given. No need to click on the “Buy Digital Album” button. I hope you enjoy it.
Hey @Malveka ! Good to hear from you. Yes she did talk about her music some and shared one of her pieces with me personally. Thank you so much for this collection.
Great to hear from you @Malveka , thank you so much for sharing this with us, I will be listening to this today as I fly around the NMS universe charting stars <3
We are building some bases in a system which will be made publicly open to all Travellers for the No Mans Sky communities 10 year anniversary celebrations this August.
I had been thinking about maybe including a message somewhere in a build to remember TravelEcho by, as she is always in our thoughts and hearts I feel, as are you.
I built a monument for the Dreamers from waking titan season 2 and I was wondering if it was okay with you if I added a little message module somewhere nearby that mentions her? This was not my intent of the Dreamers Memorial but it seems like a fitting place for me to have it now that I think about it.
Of course if you are feeling up to it, we would love to have you take part in this community build project too in whatever way you see fit, but it’s understandable if you are busy or this would be too much for you to undertake right now.
Always a pleasure to see you visit and post, hope you are doing well <3
I remember that! I believe that was the song Goddess in Me, which was the one studio recording she still had. That’s the final track on Songs of a Swan.
I’m so happy to be able to share her music with everyone here.
Hey @Malveka, I was deeply touched by the music, thank you so much for sharing. You did a wonderful job on restoring that and putting it all together. Also much appreciated to see it free to download or listen to on Bandcamp.
Oh and I see @toddumptious mentioned the upcoming NMS 10 year celebration event, and our community building project as part of it. You can get all the details for it from the Annoucement pinned to the NMS Voyagers category:
It lists all announcements for things planned, and has links to the topics.
You’re of course more than welcome to join the building project. I’ll invite you over to the private discussion we have, just so to not leak the location ahead of schedule and be free to discuss and show what all we are upto.
Glad to hear you are up for joining in with the builds
I’ve listened through Songs of a Swan twice today. Hard to pick a favourite but there are some that really hit me and completely took my attention away from the game I was playing.
This is wonderful stuff and thank you so much for sharing it with us. Thank you for making it freely available and I will be glad to buy the digital album when I get this months bills out of the way. I appreciate the time you put in to cleaning this up for our listening pleasure and your spoken intro really set the mood. TravelEcho would be so proud of you <3
Aww… thanks so much for your kindness and your caring and your feedback. I’m honored that you listened through twice.
I’ve known for a long time how wonderful this community is, and yet I continue to be amazed at the generosity of spirit I find here.
Part of the reason I decided to make this topic and provide the album link now is that this is the anniversary of when TravelEcho/Jann/Seanna and I met in person for the first time - May 19, 2000. Part of what drew us together was her music. We originally met in a newsgroup called alt.games.creatures, a group dedicated to discussing the life simulation games called Creatures. We eventually started corresponding privately and after a time she sent me a CD with her track Goddess In Me on it. I was blown away. I never lost my love of her singing and songs and playing. I was so grateful to find the box of cassette practice tapes. Some of the songs on them were ones I had never heard her sing or play in person.
Thanks to you, and everyone here, for allowing me to share this very special remembrance with you!
I remember that game. More specifically, Creatures II. It felt so insanely advanced for its time, and not sure if rose tinted glasses, but also feels incredibly advanced for the current time. I think I was maybe 10 or 11 when I first played it.
I even remember someone making the news over here or maybe in the UK for playing it and talking about the impact the game had on them and how devastated they were when one of their oldest creatures was getting ready to pass on. The news crew was there to capture the moment. I would say that report is very much lost media at this stage but I would be curious to find it now or if anyone else has gone on forums in search of it.
Thanks for unlocking some memories of this wonderful game for me
Yes! It was Creatures 2 we were both playing when we met on alt.games.creatures, though she had previously played the original Creatures as well. There was so much you could do in the game in the way of modding - scripting, sprites with behavior, creature DNA modification, etc. I agree, very advanced for its time and still quite deep even by modern standards.
I still have a copy I keep as part of the shrine to TravelEcho I have in my living room.
