Fernweh: The Story Behind the Tracks
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Hey, this is melcom (Andreas Tomas Urban).

Over the years, I've created three tracks called "Fernweh." This is the short
story that accompanies and inspired them. A little narrative to travel with
in your head while listening to the music.

Thanks for listening.


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F E R N W E H
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Prologue
They say time is a river.
For him, it was an ocean—full of currents, whirlpools, and abysses.
And he was the only one who could swim in it without drowning.

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Track 1
The stars glided silently by as his ship set a course for the Orion Nebula.
For days, he had been following a distress signal, older than any known space
travel. Between dead sectors and silent outposts, a half-devoured station
emerged. Inside: a fragment that didn't belong to this time—and a warning
that sent him racing back to Earth faster than he would have liked.

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Track 2
He was a TimeCop—one who could read the flow of time.
His mission: to find interferences before they tore entire worlds apart.
Today, he was alone, with a discovery that pulled him in like distant stars.
The fragment pulsed in the dock as if it knew him.
He laid his hand on the interface—and time fractured.
Streets flickered, faces flashed, cities grew and crumbled.
The ship stuttered, displays raced.
One last jump—a bright light—silence.

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Track 3 – Echofall
Before him lay the Earth.
But even from a distance, it looked alien—dull, shrouded in dust, its blue gone.
Upon entering the atmosphere, he saw scorched continents, cities like mounds
of ash. The echo of his jump had struck it... and brought it to ruin.

Between the ruins, an old billboard flickered.
He stepped closer, neon tubes glowed faintly, fighting against the dark.
A final flicker formed one word:

WELCOME

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Epilogue
He stood there for a long time, until the sign's light died.
The wind carried the dust across the streets, as if trying to cover the
world's scars. But he knew: some wounds lie deeper than time.
And he would keep going—to where the distance calls.


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Notes on the Tracks
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* Fernweh (2018): The first part of the story belongs to the original "Fernweh"
  track, my contribution to "The Sound of SceneSat Volume 4." It scores the
  journey into the unknown.

* Fernweh 2 (2022): The musical counterpart to Part 2. The track was a kind of
  remake with a bit more "pep" to reflect the chaos of the time jump.

* Fernweh 3: Echofall (2025): This track belongs to the third part of the
  story. It's completely dark and harsh. Even though the story isn't a
  western, the music takes on a western vibe for me towards the end—fitting
  the feeling of a lone wanderer in a fallen world.


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More from me
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Website: https://www.melcom-music.de/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/melcom-music.bsky.social


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License / Copyright
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Text & Music © 2018-2025 Andreas Thomas Urban (melcom)
The Tracks are licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License.

This means you are free to share and adapt it, as long as you give credit,
don't use it for commercial purposes, and share it under the same conditions.

Details: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
