Homestuck Vol. 6: Heir Transparent - Commentary
1.8k words across 14 entries.
Homestuck Vol. 6: Heir Transparent Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, YouTube (playlist)
This is pretty easily my favorite album so far. It's such a great mix of silly songs and kickass songs and all the wonderful moments where those two types of songs intersect. Sometimes those moments even span entire songs. Please enjoy this.
Awesome job by the guys as usual. Nice mastering work by Jeremy, author of the first and last songs.
Cindy Dominguez: (whatpumpkin.com news post)
Alright, you guys can stop begging for Vol. 6. Or, if you want to engage in a bit of pedantry (and boy do I ever!), Homestuck Vol. 6: Heir Transparent. We did it, it is done. And it is incredible.
Hmm. I wonder how many times I can imply that these guys have outdone themselves before people start thinking I am a bit of a liar? Well, I suppose all you have to do is listen to the album and promptly feel silly for ever doubting me.
I tip my hat (and implore you to do the same) to Jeremy "Solatrus" Iamurri for doing a standout job at mastering this bad boy.
Homestuck: (whatpumpkin.com side blurb)
The sixth official Homestuck album, and the first with a cool subtitle. A mere number-title alone cannot possibly hope to do this album justice.
Homestuck: (whatpumpkin.com "about the albums" blurb)
The sixth official Homestuck album......... IS GREAT!
Homestuck: (Bandcamp credits blurb)
Music by:
Robert Blaker
Michael Guy Bowman
George Buzinkai
Joren "Tensei" de Bruin
Toby "Radiation" Fox
Mark Hadley
Jeremy "Solatrus" Iamurri
David Ko
Robert J! Lake
Seth "Beatfox" Peelle
Clark "Plazmataz" Powell
Alexander Rosetti
Erik "Jit" Scheele
Frost Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube
(original commentary)
Anyway, man, where to begin on this one? My most famous song, one of the proudest moments of my musical career, etc. etc. I could go on.
But I'll start with the roots.
Frost didn't start off as the theme for the Land of Frost and Frogs. It started off as the theme for the Land of Thought and Flow. As I've mentioned in a previous post on this song, you really need to look at this image to understand what went through my head.
Remember that image? Yeah. Okay. Now then, go listen to the first 30 seconds of Frost while staring at that image.
Got it?
Good.
That's how it started.
And then Andrew asked me to use it in the animation and it got renamed. But, considering half of the song no longer fit the new theme, I rewrote the second half to include a lot more percussive instruments to give that icy feeling.
Frankly, I'm not sure what's more well known, the really ethereal arpeggio that opens the song, or the industrial drums that drive it.
(commentary redux)
I can't really make a post about this song without mentioning the above flash animation and the following image:
Because, really, if I didn't, I wouldn't be explaining a significant amount of the story behind this song.
This image of Terezi standing in the Land of Thought and Flow is what inspired the opening arpeggio for Frost. The whole Land's environment is fascinating to me, and I simply had to write a theme for that medium world. As I have probably mentioned, my preference in writing music is for settings, which gives me my really ambient sound, contrary to other musicians on the team who prefer to write melodical songs describing emotions and people.
I ended up realizing an industrial kit would work extremely well for an unusual drum beat, particularly to contrast the incredibly ethereal sound I had already established. Hell, this song is so ambient people have a hard time telling what the melody is... and no, it's not the french horn. :D
Eventually the arping bassline comes in and all is good.
Anyway, I was really hoping that Terezi's land would be explored more, but that never happened. I ended up getting contacted by Andrew to feature this in the comic, and I was really ecstatic. My music went from a few dozen people listening to it regularly, before I joined the team, to probably a few thousand after Volume 5. And then with this feature, I jumped to having hundreds of thousands of people listening to one of my songs. And it's grown since then.
That was a really mind blowing, and really awesome. I've had very few proud moments in my life more worthy than this one.
After the feature, though, I scrambled to improve the song's quality. I changed around a few things in the first half (most notably making the whole mix a bit quieter), and pushed the melody a bit more forward. The second half, I basically swapped out this very strange sounding piano improvisation I did with the percussion (vibes, glockenspiel) instruments and a saw pad for lead. The replacements work incredibly well for trying to give an icy sound, and I'm pleased with how it turned out.
I don't know if I'll ever go back to doing songs that are this ambient and minimalist, because my composing skills have progressed significantly since then, and I require much more complexity in my work. Also, now that this song is actually over two years old (for me), I've noticed how flawed it is.
But nonetheless, this is probably one of my best songs, and it's well loved by the Homestuck fandom. That's good enough for me.
GameBro (Original 1990 Mix) Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube
THE GAMES, WILL, NEVER STOP
THE GAMES WILL NEVER STOP
you know the rest
(alternatively: where the heck did that horrible dude come from get him out of the way of the album art jesus)
I just binged on too much Go Mario Go and The Heat Is On (bust a groove 2) and went out to mow the lawn and came up with it
Tribal Ebonpyre Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube
naknaknaknaknaknaknaknaknaknak
Although I didn't think the crocodiles would be so low, but whichever
I Don't Want to Miss a Thing Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube
Yeah yeah yeah, uh, there's not too much to say about this one other than I once again did an over-the-top summer movie song and now I'm starting to turn into some weird irony-laden crooner. If I keep this thing up, I'll end like Bryan Ferry, slowly mutating from a bizarre parody of a lounge lizard into the real deal. When you guys find me in Vegas playing to some bar full of people scratching their heads or playing at some rich guy's wedding, please dose me with some smelling salts so that I can figure out where I am and what the hell is going on.
Anyway, recording "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" is something that proved especially difficult, as I ended up cobbling the thing together whilst briefly staying at my parents' house (oh, those deadlines!) which wouldn't make things so hard except that they went ahead and painted the place and changed all the floors to wood paneling just before I arrived. What this means is that the rooms I recorded in were live as hell and it took a lot of work to hide the extra noise whilst being unable to pad the freshly-painted walls with anything that could possibly dampen the sound. Enjoy the results!
MeGaLoVania Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube
Andrew Hussie: (Homestuck Book 6: Act 5 Act 2 Part 2, p. 101, excerpt)
Also, upon loading, this Flash cues up the song "Megalovania" by Toby Fox, which, you know, at the time was no big deal. Just another cool song from the greater discography dropped into one of these animations. But then years later he used it again in Undertale, thus somewhat rebranding the public's association with it. Does that mean it's fair to say it's more of an Undertale song than a Homestuck song now? This question, of course, is completely ridiculous, since the answer is: it's neither. It still is, always has been, and always will be, a Vriska song.
Walk-Stab-Walk (R&E) Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube
No special picture this time because -I am lazy-
Squidissension Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube
Not a lot to say here aside from it being a combination of the Squiddles Theme and Dissension. I always enjoy finding ways to combine two themes together, and this worked better than I had hoped. I did have to move the Squiddles to a minor key for it to work though.
Blackest Heart Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube
It's extremely subtle, but the cello tremolos are playing a very slow version of the theme from the beginning of Liquid Negrocity (and Black). I wrote this just after Jack Noir retreated from John and the rabbit. I didn't know what he'd be doing at the time, nor what his motivation would be, so I imagined him retreating to some castle and brooding as he contemplated his next move. Later on, Blackest Heart would be applied (rather effectively) to Gamzee instead.
Crystalanthology Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube
(original commentary)
It's a chill drum and bass song, and one of my best productions for Homestuck. It was also my first remix since I made that Skaia remix.
Have I mentioned that Alex Rosetti's compositions are pretty incredible? They are. You should go give him some love.
(commentary redux)
Woo, my first official remix since my Skaia remix on Volume 5!
So as I've probably mentioned, I'm a huge fan of Alex Rosetti's work, and this song is absolutely no exception. I had been wanting to do something with Crystalanthemums since first listening to it. Coincidentally, it immediately proceeded my Skaia remix.
At the time, I really had no idea on who anyone was on the team, so it never really sunk in that I should do that remix until December of 2010.
Obviously at this point I had gained an interest in drum and bass music, which explains the sound, yet I still had a very soft and ethereal sound reminiscent of the original song.
Of course, I really pushed the energy up, which made it a lot of fun. I jokingly said to Alex after Volume 6 came out that while his song was at the top of the echeladder, my remix was god tier, in part due to Vriska in her God Tier outfit being there. :D
Anyway, on to the song.
So the song opens with a really interesting sounding ostinato, which is actually the same notes that open Crystalanthemums: E, D, B, A, E, D, B, D.
However, I really gated the length of the note to make it become such a short blip that the sound barely registers. On top of that I gave it a delay and combined with the gate it sounds nothing like the original motif.
And then when I open the gate on the note length you hear the ostinato faaaaar better.
A lot of people missed this, actually. :D
I have to say I really love the chord progression Alex went with in Crystalanthemums, and it was incredibly fun to make that bassline, which is actually a layered bass, but not a note-for-note bass. This is actually a pretty common thing to do, with the lower bass just playing simple sustained notes, and the higher bass is more animated.
Though I've definitely grown to prefer warm sawtooth basslines, this bass has a really nice quality that's almost a square. The filter based attack is pretty sweet sounding, too.
I really was happy with how the drum beats layered in at 2:16, though honestly, I was really out of practice of doing any sort of breakbeat stuff.
Fun fact, this was the first song I used Gross Beat on. What's Gross Beat? It's something a Time Lord of Gallifrey would approve of in music. :D If you listen to the stutter effects heard in the song, mostly in the latter half, that's where I start using Gross Beat to do some crazy time shifting stuff.
Man, I really love what I did on this song.
...I need to do another Homestuck remix, don't I?
Homestuck Vol. 6: Heir Transparent
Track list (1–21)