James Murphy has been keeping extremely busy since the dismantling of LCD Soundsystem, dipping his toes in a number of projects across a wide spectrum of fields. The jack of all trades recently launched a wine bar/restaurant in Brooklyn and scored the soundtrack to a Noah Baumbach film, all the while putting out new tunes. Most impressively, however, are his plans to revolutionize NYC’s subway system by “soundtracking” turnstiles with unique musical chords rather than the drab tones currently in place. He’s even now teamed up with Heineken on the project.
Murphy announced plans for his “Subway Symphony” project early last year. His intention is to have each turnstile in NYC have its own unique sound, “So that people who grow up will later on in life hear a piece of music and say, ‘Oh, that’s like Union Square.'” This would certainly be a cool way of integrating music into daily life.
However, the city is not convinced that his idea would be feasible. Adam Lisberg of the MTA told Gothamist, “We have heard from him, and as we’ve told him many times, we cannot do it. The tones are an ADA element for the visually impaired, and we won’t mess with them—much less take turnstiles out of service and risk disabling them for an art project. (It would be a very cool project, don’t get me wrong, but we can’t mess with turnstiles that handle 6 million customers a day for it.)”
He added, “As a condition of filming in the subway, we made them acknowledge that we can’t and won’t do it.”
Murphy remains undeterred and recently partnered with Heineken to make the project happen. Learn more about his vision below.