Get all 9 The Nomad Communion releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Boots, Bones and Bridges to Home, cube cube cube, Chronicles of Amul N'kaan: Vol I (Tales from Amenari), To Take A Life, Hollowed Sorrow: In Her Name, A Fire, Horizon: Origins OST, There's A Dead Man's Face On My Lips, Hollowed Sorrow, and 1 more.
1. |
Boots
01:41
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November 28th, 2036.
I remember walking past and seeing it through the broken window, telling myself I'd come back for it. Not that I could feasibly move it, of course. Not without you.
But I couldn't just let it collect dust.
A pair of weathered brown boots sat next to the stool, waiting for their owner to come home. I suppose I was the next best thing.
It took over a week, but today I mustered the courage to go inside. The reverb in that room is a sound to behold.
If only I had someone to share it with.
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2. |
Fresh Tracks
01:20
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December 7th, 2036.
Fresh tracks in the snow. I thought it strange at first; footprints that didn't belong to me, yet ones I know I made. It was like a riddle I'd left for myself - a trick, even - to instill a faint hope that there really was someone else around here, somewhere, with footsteps to leave.
Sometimes it's hard to know which thought scares me more.
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3. |
Bones
01:41
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December 9th, 2036.
I visited Martha again today. Just bones now. Picked clean.
I still wonder how she died. Judging by the broken rail on the cliffside, it looks like she fell. Or maybe she was pushed.
Hell, she might have even jumped.
Maybe she died elsewhere, and was moved here.
Maybe Harding's men got her. Then again, I don't recall seeing a bullet hole.
I wonder who you were, Martha: your likes and dislikes, your aspirations and accomplishments, your fears, your allergies, your talents.
I wonder if she would have picked you.
At the very least, I hope you didn't suffer for long, though something tells me that you did; you start to think of the worst when there's too many maybe's involved.
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4. |
The Patient Room
02:25
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December 20th, 2036.
Today marks thirteen years since the burglary.
On dark nights when my anxiety skyrockets, I feel my heart pounding those same familiar rhythms as it did back then.
It still makes me furious thinking about what they did to her.
What she became after. She didn't deserve it.
For the first time in my life, I saw the impossible - my own mother vulnerable, broken, weeping and hollowed. I'm just glad the sirens were already outside. Never before was I more afraid of colour; the streaks of crimson staining the patient room, bleeding through the carpet, creeping up onto the walls. The bodies. The smell. The fire.
We learnt a lot that night.
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5. |
Bridges to Home
09:01
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December 21st, 2036.
5:40. Lots of thoughts this morning. Hard to believe it's been eleven years now since the final crash. If you'd have told me this time last year I'd be wishing to go back, I'd have called you a liar. I don't think anyone could have predicted just how different things would become, and yet somehow stay the same; we toppled governments we weren't happy with, only to make our own that treated us even worse.
Funny. We didn't know just how good we had it.
I built another one today. Pretty tired. I couldn't lift the final log at first, but then it gave way as the rot took it under. It was too long for the trench anyway. Still, it's done now. Every house in a five mile radius checked. Every quadrant raided. Every stone unturned. I'm left with years of supplies, thousands of toys, seventeen bridges to home, and enough dairies to keep me sorted until the next apocalypse. No more bloody crossword books.
This is a special day, but I'm not sure if I should celebrate it - too many anniversaries in December. Maybe I should make my own month. Not like there's no one around to stop me.
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6. |
Ivory God
02:40
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Altember 25th, 2036.
I'm here in the concert hall, journal lit by a haze of vanilla, enamoured by the mists of moonlight as they splinter down through the glass ceiling, sheltered under the ivory god. It's not real ivory, mind you, but I'm no pedant. I finished playing the piano version of Wasted Light.
The recordings turned out great! Few mistakes here and there but it adds to the authenticity, no?
The way the room came alive at the chorus! The cheers, the roses, the admiration - the air was alive with a fervour unlike any I'd ever known! I felt my soul twirling, carried away on the backs of soundwaves soaring to heights unseen, desperate to tell the heavens of my art. To find a home in an empty world was a task I was beginning to believe impossible, but tonight, on this very night, I did exactly that.
I know this feeling won't be here forever, but by writing it down, I'm capturing it in time, immortalising my joy, making it a tangible and sincere memento, proof to myself that my journey will be worth it. Proof to myself that everything I've gone through will mean something. And if nothing else, proof to myself that my art is living these moments with me, sharing in the burden of both my pain and my pleasure.
And knowing this, believing it as wholly and as fully as I can, means I'll never truly be alone. I value this comfort beyond description.
For months I've debated what's scarier: being the only human left alive, or being one of a handful of people holding this same belief. If I really am destined to be the last person left on this planet, so be it. I'll cope. I'll live. I'll thrive, even; I have all the time and resources I could ever dream of, and it's a blessing to be able to spend it however I please. But if it's the latter, and someone IS searching for me, their 'them', then I owe it to them to keep looking in return.
Now more than ever, I cannot give up.
She didn't just pick people at random. She picked people like me.
It was her own personal apocalypse, for Christ's sake! She planned this for years! She HAD to have had a better reason to set all this in motion than for a sadistic isolation experiment she wouldn't even get to see the results of. After she died, I just left. I didn't give it a second thought. I just wanted to go home.
But now I'm realising what it is I have to do.
I have to go back.
There's got to be something I missed, something I overlooked. It only took a hundred days to get there, give or take - I have thousands of days left in me. Maybe I wasn't the only person she was luring to her. Maybe someone else is on their way to her right now.
What will they do when they get there and find nothing but bodies?
I could just not bother. I could stay here with my bunker, my forest, my ivory god, these boots, Martha's bones, my bridges to home. After all, I could live comfortably here for decades providing I take care of myself. But what good is a life of luxury if it's a life spent alone? No, this has to be done. There simply isn't another way.
I've made up my mind. I'll head out soon, back on the eastern road. Maybe I could get one of those trains up and running, who knows. It'll be worth it to try. I've always wanted to drive a train. But not tonight. Tonight is for Raymond Victor, the last man on Earth, to dance, to sing, to live with his art, if only for a couple more hours, alone.
But he won't be alone for much longer.
I will not let you down. I'm too stubborn for that.
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The Nomad Communion UK
I make music to challenge you.
To Take a Life [2023] - a narrative-driven audio drama,
exploring isolation, morality and conscience. Out now!
Horizon: Origins OST [2022] - a sci-fi horror adventure soundtrack for Horizon, a survival game set in the hostile wastelands of Mars.
Hollowed Sorrow [2021] - a psychological descent into discomfort, exploring humanity, mortality and eventuality.
... more
The Nomad Communion recommends:
The Umbra Report
by Cities Last Broadcast
Super interesting drone soundscapes with an atmosphere thicker than my ass. It's got a deep sense of character, mystery and uncertainty. Lovely stuff!
go to album
Very good stuff.
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