Greetings fellow humans! Remember when I said I was working on a pretty awesome project? Well, I'm now making that project known publicly!
Basically, I'm now the composer for the Youtube sci-fi dystopian series, Youtupolis, as of Episode 3, which was just released today. It's rather fantastic:
I highly suggest you subscribe now. Or experience death.
Got a quick shot of this wonderful little bee in my yard. Turned off autofocus for taking macro-photography, so most everything is out of focus. The bee is pretty close, though.
Here's a very short flash fiction story I wrote a few days ago (more to come soon):
He frowned at the circle on the ground. It hung like a dark hole, devoid of space, devouring the ground around it. This was the fifth time one of these had been found. "Hey, Andrew!" he yelled into the banging noise of the construction zone. "Come get rid of this hubcap!"
I am sorry to announce that I will not be continuing Planetary Ending, as of now. Planetary Ending was an experiment of mine, to try out writing trailer music and venture into the world of music licensing. It didn't go as well as hoped, and I don't see the point of continuing the project.
There won't be any more Planetary Ending albums, however, I won't be getting rid of Fractured Equinox, and it will still be up, available for listening, downloading, licensing, etc!
As for the tracks that were going to be released in future albums, I'm not sure what to do with them yet. Maybe I'll figure it out eventually.
Sorry folks.
There is a really cool project I am working on right now though, and I can't wait to show you guys it! I'm keeping it secret until it actually comes out though, but it shouldn't be too much longer. Coolness reeks from it.
It is an ocean sunset.
Even though there are many names for this sort of art, I will call it pseudo painting, because it's painting on the computer. For this I used GIMP 2.6.
It's warm enough now to go take photos outside, so I got a bunch of macro photographs of plants in my front yard. Enjoy!
Kevin went to the market to purchase orange juice. The ninja army, however, could not let that happen. Kevin sensed their presence fifteen milliseconds before they attacked. It just so happened that his reflex response time was precisely 14 milliseconds. The ninja flood dove on him, but he jumped, then moved his leg in an overly complex pattern. The ninjas were annihilated in 19 milliseconds. "Darn," said Kevin. "I didn't beat it!"
His record time was 18 milliseconds.
Slowly, the wall cracked open. “No!” James screamed. Every obstacle, every trap, had failed. There was no escape now. The wall finished its collapse, dust slowly clearing. A man stepped through and into sight. James could no longer breathe from the terror. “Hello, James,” said the man, a dusty clipboard in hand. “I’m your Realtor.”
In past dealings with my mind, I've discovered an odd habit of mine. This habitual occurence mainly presents itself whilst listening to film soundtracks, something that I spend hours a day doing. I begin formulating a review of the soundtrack in my thoughts, almost like a music lecture to my invisible mind-minions. Not until recently have I considered writing them up online. But, I have now. So I shall. And this is the first. And short sentence. Fragments.
Composed by Clint Mansell
The Fountain is not your usual orchestral soundtrack fare. Its dark, brooding, beautiful, and haunting all at once, performed by a string quartet (Kronos Quartet) and a post-rock band (Mogwai). It mainly hinges on just a few minimalistic, repetitive motifs.
We are introduced to the score by track 1, "The Last Man," a long, slow piece, with piano and strings. They bring in what I dub Theme 1, in a simplistic form. At first listen, it may seem quite boring, but it's beauty comes through after a while. This theme is expounded upon a great deal later on in "First Snow," which begins in a similar fashion, but builds to bring the full theme on in the end in a wonderfully emotional statement on violin.
A few tracks include isolated melodies that don't seem to show up anywhere else, although are very stylistically congruent with the rest of the score. These include 4: "Stay With Me," 5: "Death is a Disease," and 6: "Xibalba." The first two showcase some soft background electric guitar background. It's a very captivating, almost ethereal soundscape.
Distortion comes into heavy play in a few spots. "Holy Dread" is the most suspense-oriented track, opening with creepy electronic effects and drums. It then turns into a heavily distorted horror-esque style. "Tree of Life," introduces Theme 2, a 3 note based melody (Minor third, minor 6th, 5th), backed by drums and plenty of distortion, and a repeating background 3 note string motif, which is all over the score (And later evolves into a 5 note motif).
And now I must devote an entire paragraph to "Death is the Road to Awe." How couldn't I? It's an 8 minute epic climax to the score, constantly building. It brings Theme 1 and Theme 2 in in full force. It opens with Theme 1 played softly, slowly building, before pausing for a moment and bringing in Theme 2. The piece continues on like this, switching off between those 2, constantly increasing in energy and size. Of particular note is the section from 5:00 to 6:25, which takes the aforementioned 3 note string motif and pulling it into a manic, 5 note theme, with crazed electric guitar, which merges with the strings in a disturbing upwards glissando. But the undoubted best moment is at 7:35, where the music explodes with extreme force, bringing in Theme 2 in an absolutely epic full choir/rock band/string quartet rendition, reminiscent of over-massive trailer music tracks.
Finally, the score ends on a solo piano piece, "Together We Will Live Forever," with some wonderful variations on the rest of the soundtrack.
Overall, The Fountain is one of my favorite scores of all time, and I glady give it a full 9/10 rating. This is something that I recommend to everyone, even the non-soundtrack fans (Perhaps it may even convert you to Film-Score-ism).
And there is my first soundtrack review. Sorry if it gets a bit too technical for non-musicians, but expect that in the future.
