The Perfect Vision
Patti Smith and The Soundwalk Collective
Patti Smith joins The Soundwalk Collective, artists hailing from Berlin and New York, make their debut together with the release of a three-album project, The Perfect Vision. The albums take on the works of French poets Antonin Artaud, Arthur Rimbaud and René Daumal, respectively. Life-changing travel to different parts of the world shaped the words of each of these poets. And it is through this travel and their words that these albums take shape.
The debut single “The New Revelations of Being” comes from the first album in the trio, titled The Peyote Dance. Here the Soundwalk Collective retraced Artraud’s journey to Mexico, a trip the poet had hoped would cure his opioid addiction. There the Soundwalk Collective recorded sounds and instruments native to the region. Smith then lends her vocals to the recording. The culmination of poetry, sound and emotion create a piece of work that can only be described as a spiritual experience.
In her own words, Smith says “The poets enter the bloodstream, they enter the cells. For a moment, one is Artaud,” Smith said in a statement, describing her experience of recording the album. “You can’t ask for it, you can’t buy it, you can’t take drugs for it to be authentic. It just has to happen, you have to be chosen as well as choose.” The first album is to be released this May. The second will focus on Rimbaud and his trip to Ethiopa, while the third center on Rimbaul’s experience in the Himalayas.
