May Journal: Throwback

It has been a year since the Dear Eveline challenge ends. That was a fun one. My third canonical album basically served as an exercise to compose one song each month for a year. I ended up having 13 songs with various styles and varying degree of effort put on the respective “music videos”, depending on how busy I was.

If I have to pick a favorite (in this particular order), here are my proudest works:

1. Christmas Eve: It was supposed to be titled something else but for OSINT mitigation reasons (my top reason for not disclosing information) I quickly changed the title. It’s nice that I got to upload that when it actually was Christmas Eve. This song reminds me a lot of late night Christmas joy, where the weather is just perfect; not too cold so it’s still warm enough outside. You’d go and explore the festive city at night, passing along strangers on the street. I have a soft spot for after night sceneries, the calmness and emptiness of places late at night. That’s what it reminds me of. Less of the cultural/religious background of Christmas Eve, but more of that after hours feeling I get on that time of the year.
2. End Credits (Outro): Surprisingly the bonus track gets a second place on my favorite list. This song could’ve been more though, especially on the visual side. I was learning about Computer Graphics, especially how computers render 3D scenes using maths, or commonly abstracted using Blender. In fact, the cover art was made using Blender! I did not have enough time and energy to learn 3D animation from 0 and upload a 3D music video. This is wild to say because I have the exact same plan few months ago for a song planned to be released on the next Friday the 13th (which is June 13th this year). I haven’t made any significant progress towards that music vidoe :D!!
3. Impermanence: Perfect title, good album opener, and a completely different style that for some reasons work well for my taste. Impermanence as a word is also the lesson that keeps ringing in my head the past few years. Could’ve been mixed better though, that’s why it’s on the 3rd place.

Honorable mention would go to One In A Million for the classic reason that I could’ve done better. The song was suppose to be released in November 2023 but I made the last minute decision to partner up with my friend instead for the cover art. It took her a while to finish, but that gave the perfect opportunity for me to release the song in February 2024. Just know that the month is special for me and the person I made One In A Million for.

My thought process on the composition of that song was to basically try to emulate A House In Nebraska by Ethel Cain. Why? Because that song was stuck in my head. If you can’t figure it out, it’s the part my song where a guitar lead suddenly appears over a slow beating drum in the background. Huge emphasis on trying to emulate there. If you don’t know it yet, I use LMMS as my DAW since it’s the only FOSS (and intuitive enough to use) DAW that could run on Linux. Yes, I use Linux, entry 2 and 19 should make it clear that I’m a paranoid freak but anyway. LMMS, DAW, not really ideal for recording emotional, slow burn, songs. Most of the default synths are 8-bit, chiptune-y, game soundtrack synths. I did not own a proper recording equipment when I made that song. So it is what it is, but hey, I’m still proud of it.

Reminder that the album is free to download over on Bandcamp.