Austin musician Walker Lukens and photographer Chad Wadsworth are launching Slow Atlas, a multimedia project in three parts: a YouTube channel of nature footage with original scores, a photo book with its own soundtrack, and a free launch concert at Central Machine Works on Friday, November 20.

It all started in Iceland. Lukens, a singer-songwriter and producer who has released several albums under his own name, originally planned to travel there to make a record at a remote studio. The idea soon outgrew a single album.

He brought in Wadsworth, a longtime friend and Austin music photographer whose work has run in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and Texas Monthly. The two first met at Float Fest in 2017.

"We get to do some work for the passion and some work for the paycheck, and this was a pure passion project," Wadsworth says.

The first piece to arrive is Slow Atlas TV, a YouTube channel that pairs hour-long films of remote landscapes with original scores. The team shoots all of their own footage, and a different musician scores each film.

Fans of Lukens' existing work may recognize a pattern; his podcast, Song Confessional, asks artists to write songs about anonymous secrets submitted to the show, and he paired a photography zine with the release of his album Accessible Beauty.

The first film, Slow Atlas 1, premieres on YouTube November 6, with music from English pedal steel player Joe Harvey Whyte set to footage of Reynisfjara, Iceland’s black sand beach. New films will follow every two weeks, and the series will later travel to West Texas, Hawaii, and Costa Rica.

The channel grew out of Lukens’ love of ambient music and his frustration with how much of it online now comes from machines.

"There’s just so much slop out there … literally AI slop," he says. "It just felt like … humans should relax with things that other humans make."

The book, Slow Atlas: Iceland, pairs Wadsworth’s photographs from the trip with an original album Lukens made for it. Readers put on headphones and connect to a phone app via Bluetooth. The music shifts as they turn each page.

"We made a very purposeful decision to not tell a story… you don’t really know what’s happening, you don’t know where you are in each section," Wadsworth says. "It’s really up to the viewer and the listener to create their own narrative."

Lukens sees the book as a counterweight to streaming culture.

"Putting out music doesn’t feel as good as it used to, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we throw it up on streaming services, and there’s no ritual about it anymore," he says.

The book is available for preorder through Radioposter, its publisher, and will reach bookstores and record stores across Texas.

The November 20 show at Central Machine Works doubles as the book’s release party. Lukens, Portland ambient artist Amulets, and Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider as a duo will each improvise a live score to Slow Atlas footage projected on large screens, with DJ Starflake opening the night.

“Do you remember hearing about how you could put Dark Side of the Moon with Wizard of Oz?” Lukens says. “This is like that, but Iceland.”

“Some of the footage is really psychedelic,” he adds. “You don’t even need to be high... But if you were high, that would be cool, too.”

Doors for this concert-meets-book-launch event are at 7 pm, and live music starts at 8 pm at 4824 E. Cesar Chavez St. Admission is free with an RSVP. Copies of the book ($45) will be for sale at the show, along with limited-edition vinyl of the Amulets score.

After the initial live show, Slow Atlas is set to return January 23, 2027, with a $20 show at Austin Film Society. Then the duo will host a SXSW showcase at Central Presbyterian Church on March 19 ($10 or free with a badge).