2.3k words across 7 entries.

Waltz of the Lilies Listen on: YouTube, SoundCloud

Latadenata:

i remember being surprised and excited when i saw that i would do tahoma's theme, i was actually relieved to see i would do it for a character that i did actually like a lot, not like others that i wont mention to not get some people mad haha

they asked me to make a waltz and gave me some songs to inspire myself in, like some genshin impact and madoka magica songs. to be honest, i had never made a waltz, as a matter of fact, i never did a song that wasn't in a 4/4 time signature, to be honest.

for some context, when i made this song, i had just been making music for 9-10 months, so i was pretty new at making music, i think i was the freshest musician out of all the ones that participated on the album! (i still am new to making music since just 4 months have passed since i originally made that song anyways haha). so, to give an actual good waltz song for tahoma, i had to study waltz by watching some tutorials and learning the basics of it!

something i get told about a lot is that i learn new genres pretty fast, and i like to think this song was a perfect example of that!

anyways, before making the song i tried to imagine a scenario in which it would play, and for me, the scenario of this song was something like this:

since tahoma likes to read history books, i imagined her putting a vinyl disc in which this song would play and then she would start reading the books and recreating the scenes of the books in her imagination, and that's when 1:26 would come, i liked to think as she imagining herself as an heroic warrior in a great war or something like that!

overall, i wanted to make it peaceful and somewhat fragile (since that's what i was asked for lulz) but i also imagine tahoma as pretty strong and heroic, so that's why i decided to make such a "epic" and strong part at the end of the song :p

also, since i imagined it as tahoma's playing this song on a vinyl, i made a "static" effect in the beggining and the end of the song, as i thought it would be fitting! (i would later know that this detail was important to her character and crossmound in general via GHST words after hearing the track)

this might surprise some, but i made this track in less than a day, as i'm a pretty fast worker XD

since making music is something i do REALLY like, i don't usually find myself exhausted at all to stop with a song, so i end up doing them in less than 8 or so hours. (this is something that after some time i have stopped doing, and now i spend more than a day or two making songs. i also think that it's better to give making songs more time, since how you hear a song can change A LOT in just some hours of chilling and deciding to not listen to it, giving you more chances to improve it)

i remember being REALLY, but REALLY happy when i was making it and also when i finished it, since at the time, i considered this song to be my peak and the best song i made until then!

of course, now that some months have passed, i really wish i had taken some more time with it, since i think there a lot of things to improve, but i won't say them because if i do people won't like this song as much!!!

as some final comment, i really wish i could have made some more tracks apart from this one! but even so, it was reeaaaaally fun to do! (i hope i get to make tahbbi's theme on the vol.2) ((let's hope this doesn't age like milk))

Roots Listen on: YouTube, SoundCloud

_Night_Milk_:

(Alternate artworks:)

Blue Trooper Listen on: YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp

Guffy:

this track was originally called "cowboy but REAL" but i get why they changed it lol

i made this like months before writing this so im trying to recall details lol

i was given the Information on dulcan about being the crossmound militia equivalent type, to include marching/orchestral stuff. also brass? classism.

im sorry in advance but usually when im given examples to listen to for inspiration like 90% of the time ill listen to it for a Moment and then just do whatever

i did start off with that marching rhythm because its like. the only actually marching vibe library i have lmao but the big drums fit the vibe a lot.

theres a lot of the one motif used over and over because idk it just sounds good and i couldnt quite find another short melody/riff that fit the feel?

oh god i ALMOST included cows, but someone convinced me out of that. thank fuck. the anvil sound is cool but already a bit on the nose. i did however include a cowbell, get fucked i guess?

piano is nice. sorta a pull from another track which mariboo liked where i did a fancy ass yoko shimomura piano bit. idk i put a bit of that flair in here but didnt go all out, there was already enough shit going on

god i forget about the bass guitar every time i listen to this. i dont have a reason for including it. it is a part of my Style i guess? my little guffy flair. hee hee!

oh ive just been told i said this in the past about the bass:

"i wasnt going to but i gave into my primal instincts and added a bass guitar to the entirely orchestral track because i wanted to"

so thats that? idk lol

Oracular Envoy Listen on: YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp

Guffy:

i read the brief about this track and immediately within like 2 hours of it being posted i wrote like the first third of the song without asking if i could claim it lol

i dont remember much of the specifics for the brief but it was very much a "only organic sounds" type deal, i think they wanted religious/church vibes? i got the tubular bells in there on a delay for that, its nice and eerie

i love the deep thumping sound i have too, had just enough of that sub sound for that hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck vibe.

im so sorry to anyone who wants to do shit with the motifs and stuff i used in this, because of the time signatures. sure i used your typical 4/4 for the start, but start doing 15/8, 11/8, 13/8 stuff in there. this was specifically NOT to be wanky. doing it gave it a vibe of unease. you cant tell where The Beat is placed.

i was really happy with making the smooth lead strings (the violin and viola) play the same stuff during the first few sections, and then having them split apart. listeners think its just one instrument but jumpscare, its two!!

i dont have a huge amount to say on this one i guess uhh

Upbrought by Solace Listen on: YouTube, SoundCloud

Levc:

(When asked by QN about the musical inspirations behind this track...)

Oh woah give me a minute and I'll answer it properly

• No it's not based on any homestuck track (at least as far as I know, you know, influences and such). The idea was to have a kind of baroque fugue that leads well into that strong church like chord with the lady singing. Not much of a homestuck inspiration and more of a putting my years in music school to use haha.

• While I have to say that the strong melodic inspiration was, in fact Requiem of Sunshine and Rainbows (you were right lmao), what you can say it's seems like Terezi's Theme, it's again just a continuation of the whole the baroque asthetic. The intro was made after this main section to fit within the theme of the piece.

• Both the intro and outro was the last thing done. So again not much of a reference to homestuck, BUT the final chord resolution was just me using some good ol' sustain cadence in reference to the cliche of what a song with a church-like-organ should sound like.

also if you need any homestuck related trivia for this song, it has like two other references that are more, about the style and instruments used rather than a direct melodic quote.

• took inspiration from An Unbreakable Union in respect to the drums. or at least the general energy of the first section.

• at 1:50 in a way took inspiration from the brass in Earthsea Borealis

• also at 2:11 it's inspired by Earthsea Borealis.... by the happy "wedding bells" part yeah.

You can tell I love Earthsea borealis by listening to this track lmao

I could talk about the nightmare that was mixing but that's kinda boring and "mixing hell" can describe all my tracks if I'm being honest.

didn't expect to be asked about a song. It makes me really happy to see the interest :3

Occult Occursion Listen on: YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp

Guffy:

i have many thoughts about this track lets see if i can put them into words

this is a heavy version of Oracular Envoy.

firstly: nobody asked for this. i just did this on my own. i had very recently been listening to a lot of doom eternal/GoeffPlaysGuitar stuff (specifically his Dancing Mad cover)

i was sitting here going like. "oh this has funky time signatures. i could fuck around with this." i had been itching to make some heavy doom-ish style music for a while and making this cover (remix? version?) was the perfect outlet. shoutouts to argent metal. i need to get better at it

at its core, chucked this at like double speed and doubled up every section. moved things to synths, swelled things.

the guitar i used was an 8 string fucker. its so unnecessary. but i wanted this track to be big and loud.

i struggle so much writing drums in like, any context, hence why they mostly loop in places. sorry yall im not a drummer!

but yeah since I used an 8 string guitar i couldnt do anything incredibly intricate with the bass. i had a synth bass running along mostly on one note until i brought in an electric bass to double down on the melody

im literally only just realising this now but including the choir and keeping the tubular bells in this version actually keeps the theme of Church Vibes from envoy, which i didnt actually think about in the moment but here we are

god i fucking love using that choir! i did it to fit in the vibe of how some of the doom eternal tracks have similar stuff too, but this specific choir library i hear everywhere. i dont use it enough so i put it in this fucker!

the compound signature section is the big reason i did this version in the first place, i really wanted the synths to just run wild throughout it. make it feel like they're moving chaotically, with no home until they're reset in place. figuring out how to do the drums here was a nightmare though whoops

i figured i should keep SOME of the original instrumentation from Envoy so i brought over the delayed bells in the 3/4 section. keeps it ominous in the background.

i very much bullshitted a transition between the 3/4 and 4/4 sections there lmao i couldnt smoothly make it change without that odd thing

i did add a completely new section missing from Envoy in the middle of the 4/4 outro, explicitly to throw off people who thought they were listening to a 1-1 translation of the original. get fucked. in that section i adore how you can feel it getting tense again in the first half, but after the harmonic hit the bass and the rest of the drums kick it into a new intensity. love it. coming down after it for an actual outro was rough though but i got it including the choir and a last hit of the bell :)

Eyes in the Abyss Listen on: YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp

Abibeur:

"Eyes in the Abyss" is... what happens when you ask a noise artist to work on the soundtrack of your fanadventure. Ironically, it is probably the less Homestuck-y track of the whole album and as such probably the track who differentiates Crossmound Vol. 1 from most other Homestuck and fanadventures' soundtracks. In all modesty, obviously. It is one of my shortest songs, as I'm used to make them drag a little longer for a full droney vibe, but I fully understand why it had to be that way, as it was used in [S] And now... You'll wake up.

I was asked to begin the track in a dark ambient feel and then make it become increasingly noisy and chaotic, and that's what I did. I don't really remember what were most of the sounds and noises I used in this, but as I just said "most", there still are some. I was asked to represent horrorterrors by adding unsettling sentient noises, so I did with whispers, moans and groans that I actually recorded myself, because I know how to make strange noises with my mouth, so I was in my element.

After my first draft, Mari asked me if it was possible to add some "percussive noise" and I actually don't remember what I used to do it, but I was searching to do some sort of loud heartbeat sound and yeah, I think it's safe to say the bet is won. Finally, I was asked to end it abruptly and even if it was done differently in the flash, which I totally understand, I'm still really proud of what I did in the track itself. A radio button (I think? I don't remember what it was exactly) clicking sound, some white noise (recorded with my old computer, probably the best silence white noise I can find) and another clicking sound to end. I really like that method of mine to end a noisy and chaotic mess in some sort of "back to reality", it really pump up the unsettling tone of the song to the max. For me. So yeah, I'm really proud to "end" the album (minus the hidden bonus track...) with this.