Strife 2 - Commentary
4.1k words across 19 entries.
Strife 2 Strife 2 (album commentary) Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube (playlist), Spotify
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign story, excerpt)
Help fund Tensei's Strife 2 Multi-Album Project
A continuation of the musical work Tensei has performed on the Homestuck soundtrack.
Overview
During my years making music for the Homestuck webcomic, there have been many songs that remained unfinished or haven't seen the light of day for a variety of reasons. Strife 2 is an effort to combine some of the best of these unreleased songs with plenty of new material in a single album that will dwarf the first Strife album in both quantity and quality. Additionally, this campaign will serve to open up an avenue for future musical endeavors such as the Noir Album.
Short Summary
My name is Joren de Bruin, though I often go by my artist name Tensei. I am an independent composer/producer and am probably best known for my work on the soundtrack for the webcomic Homestuck. I've written music in a wide variety of styles and genres and many of my tracks have received high praise from fans of the comic.
Back in 2011, I released an album called Strife, which to this day remains one of the most "recommended listens" of the entire Homestuck discography. Strife was an album that combined a foundation of hard rock/heavy metal with eclectic influences from videogames and anime soundtracks, all based around the common theme of 'battle music'.
I've had many fans request some kind of follow-up to Strife, but was never able to get something off the ground due to the significant investment required in terms of both money and time. With crowdfunding I'll be able to dedicate most my time to making a great album, and bring it to a higher level of quality than would otherwise be possible.
By backing this project you express your support and desire to see the continued release of more music in the style of the first Strife album. Your support also opens up possibilities such as releases on physical media and high quality album art.
Quasar Nebula: (wiki editor)
Tensei's Indiegogo campaign ran from to and met around $16,499 USD of its $5,000 goal, passing all stretch goals. Strife 2 hit its target release date four months later.
Also planned from the start, with its $6,500 goal met, was "the Noir album" - a film noir-themed release (who else?) inspired by the positive reception to an earlier noir-style piece; and at the $14,000 mark, a fully live version of Heir of Grief. Tensei also took around 50 music commissions.
Tensei kept the Indiegogo campaign periodically updated through June 2017. Having faced technical difficulty and some real-life issues, he shared an update marking that the Noir album wouldn't meet its target. In March 2018 he shared a follow-up update: some serious creative burnout had hampered his ability to see progress in both the Noir album and his commissions. He described the situation in detail and apologized, and wrote that, despite the delays and radio silence, he was still "as committed as ever to finishing all the commissions, the Noir album and the Heir of Grief remake. It will just take longer."
Although, as of writing, the Noir album still isn't complete, Tensei has more recently featured on the post-Homestuck team album P[S], collaborating with Michael Guy Bowman, and on Land of Fans and Music 5 Act 2.
here’s all the art i did for tensei’s new album, strife 2!
and the troll designs can be found here. (´・ω・`)
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign story, excerpt)
What We Need
The main limiting factor in creating Strife 2 has always been opportunity cost: an album of this scope requires multiple months of work and only makes money over a longer term after its release. By turning to crowdfunding, this investment is essentially front-loaded, which means that I can put all my time in creating the album instead of having to worry about making money to support myself.
Another part of it is musical equipment. My bass guitar and wah pedal need to be sent in for repairs, some of my samples need to be upgraded and new strings for my guitars are pretty much a constant expenditure. The money from this campaign will be used to upgrade and maintain my musical equipment, as well as pay collaborators/guest spots, which ensures that the quality of the album releases will be as good as it can be.
What You Get + Stretch Goals
Music
Obviously! The Strife 2 album itself will have at least 12 tracks, making it twice as long as its predecessor. Perks for supporters also include other songs I've made previously.
The following preview video should provide a decent impression of the kinds of songs you can expect on the album. Note that all of these are works in progress and are therefore subject to changes in the final release.
(Strife 2 Music Preview)
(Strife 2 Music Preview #2: G4M3 OR D13)In addition to Strife 2, I have 2 more albums planned, details for which are listed below.
Commissions
To coincide with this campaign, will be offering a limited amount of special commissions at a significantly lower rate than usual, with a variety of options and pricing ranges available. More details on commissions are listed below.
$5750 - Track Art
With enough support I can afford to pay a professional artist to create track art and logo's for the album and give it a much higher level of polish and character. Marimo, the artist I have in mind is someone I've worked with multiple times in the past and whom I trust to deliver great quality. An example of her track art is shown below:
$6500 - The Noir Album
A few months ago I posted a playful little jazzy tune called "Long Night Ahead", inspired by film noir, 90s point and click adventure games, and a certain other webcomic. The reception was amazingly positive, so the idea of turning it into an album was a tempting one. The Noir Album is still very much in its conceptual phase, but I am positive that I can turn it into something great. I'll be aiming for a similar scope as the Strife 2 album (12+ songs) but in a very different style, an example of which can be found in the music preview video.
If this stretch goal is reached, I am looking at the 12th of June, 2017 as a potential release date.
8000$ - Physical Release - CD
Even though physical media is on its way out, it's still nice to have something you can hold on to, right? Printed track art & commentary booklet included. On reaching this stretch goal, any backers on a perk tier that includes the Digital release of Strife 2 can upgrade to a physical CD version (with shipping costs).
14000$ - Heir of Grief Ultimate - Rework
Heir of Grief stands out as arguably my most popular song on the Homestuck soundtrack, though I never was entirely satisfied with it, which makes a potential rework of it a tantalizing but ambitious goal. On reaching this stretch goal, I will be able to rent studio time and contract session musicians to deliver a fully live version of Heir of Grief that will blow every other Homestuck song I've ever made away.
The initial funding goal is my estimate of the required amount of money to be able to deliver Strife 2 by the date of March 14th, 2017, as well as the Commission compilation album (date of release depends on the number of commissions). If the funding does not meet the initial goal, both albums will be delayed as I will have to split my time working on the album with other projects. The amount of time by which the albums will be delayed depends on how much the funding falls short of the initial goal.
16500$ - Physical Release - Vinyl
Vinyl has kind of been in vogue again recently, right? Vinyl production costs are fairly high, and will require a separate remaster, which is why this is quite a pricey stretch goal. Both Strife 2 and the Noir Album will have a vinyl release if this goal is reached and will be available as a free upgrade for all $45 and up perks (but with associated shipping costs).
Risks & Challenges
Provided the funding is there, I foresee no risks that are likely to threaten the release of the albums, barring something happening to me personally. From experience, I am quite meticulous in keeping multiple backups of my projects nowadays, so even a simultaneous double hard drive failure shouldn't threaten the eventual release of the albums (though it might delay it).
Equipment failure is always a possibility as well, but the funding from this campaign should give me enough of a financial buffer to account for eventualities such as these.
Other Ways You Can Help
Spread the word! Even if you can't afford to contribute, I know that a lot of people in the Homestuck fandom enjoy the music I've made, but might not necessarily connect it to my name. They might be eager to hear more and contribute to this campaign, so even getting the news out there helps.
FAQ
Q: Is this an official Homestuck album?
A: No. What Pumpkin is not involved in the production of any part of this album.
Q: What about the Noir album, that name is kind of similar to...
A: It's based on Film Noir, a genre of movies from the 1930s-50s known for its hardboiled detectives and private eyes that get caught up in all manner of seedy shenanigans at the behest of some distressed broad. That's the kind of vibe you should expect from the album.
Q: You teased a potential 16/2/2017 release date to make it exactly 6 years since the original release, what happened to that?
A: It's more important to me that the album is good than to release it on an anniversary, and it's still quite possible that the album will be done by February the 16th. The 14/3/2017 release date is there to set an upper limit: the album will very definitely be released by then at the latest, but possibly earlier.
Q: How are the prices for the commissions determined?
A: I usually do commissions in bulk/under contract for commercial projects (such as an entire soundtrack), which typically involves getting paid per minute of music delivered, as well as a percentage of sales (royalties). Commissions from the perks of this campaign are royalty-free and priced more attractively than my typical contract work, due to their limited nature. Additionally, you get all the albums and previous tier perk rewards as well.
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign update)
As of right now, we have passed the initial $5000 goal, which means Strife 2 is succesfully funded, and the launch date on the 14th of March is a go! I want to extend my sincere gratitude to every one of you; I am humbled by the idea that so many of you enjoy my music enough to help make this album a reality, and I will do my best to not just live up to your expectations, but to exceed them.
The campaign still has a good three weeks to go, which means that there is still a good possibility to achieve stretch goals for track art and the Noir album.
Going forward, I will start working on commissions next week, sorted by date. So if you have the appropriate perk tier and pledged early, you can expect an e-mail from me in the coming weeks to discuss the commission stuff. Each public commission will be sent to the commissioner as soon as it's done, as well as posted on my youtube channel, so there should be a fair amount of intermittent content updates leading up to the release of the album.
I'm also keeping open the possibility for a second preview video of a bunch of songs that haven't been shown before. Either way, there is a lot to look forward to!
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign update)
Changing your Perk Tier Rewards
I've had a few people ask me about increasing their donation amount to reach one of the higher perk tiers. That's great to hear! Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way of directly modifying the amount of your original donation. From what I can tell, while the campaign is still ongoing, the best way to achieve this would be to simply issue a refund and then donating the desired amount again. This will directly connect your name to that particular perk tier and make things a lot easier to sort out for me in the end.
If, for whatever reason, refunds aren't an option for you, but you would like to modify your pledge to reach a different perk tier, feel free to contact me through Indiegogo and we'll work something out.
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign update)
Track Art and Noir Album Stretch Goals Reached!
Thanks to a sudden uptick in donations over the past few days, funding just surpassed $6500, which covers both the $5750 stretch goal for individual track art, as well as the Noir Album stretch goal. That means every perk tier from $14 upward will now receive both albums!
I'd like to direct your attention to a new Strife 2 track preview that I uploaded yesterday as well, which should hopefully give a solid impression of the progress on the album.
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign update)
CDs, Heir of Grief and the King in Red, oh my!
With 4 days left, things are getting exciting. As you might have noticed, a mysterious benefactor by the name of Talem Husk has more or less singlehandedly been pushing the funding towards the Heir of Grief Ultimate stretch goal. They deserve a big shoutout and many thanks for that!
Funding has also crushed the $8000 stretch goal, which means that Strife 2 will be printed on CDs as well. CDs will be available as an optional upgrade to any tier that includes the digital version. You don't have to pay anything extra for the CD besides shipping costs, which aren't likely to exceed $20 per package (and probably a good deal less than that, especially if you're in the EU).
Once I get around to printing the CDs (probably over the summer of 2017, possibly a bit earlier depending on how much time the Noir Album will take up), I will try to gauge how many people would be interested in getting one, base the number of prints on that (with some reserves), and mail them out in bulk.
I also released another Strife 2 track preview here (which you've probably already seen if you keep up with my other media):
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign update)
Great Success!
So with $16499 we have raised 330% of the initial goal and have reached every available stretch goal (more or less, anyway). I extend my sincere gratitude to everyone who contributed, no matter the actual amount (even one dollar can make a pretty big difference after all!).
So, to recap the release schedule:
14th of March, 2017 - Strife 2 Digital, Music Compilations.
12th of June, 2017 - Noir Album.
Summer 2017 - Strife 2 CDs (some delay possible depending on how the shipping works out)
Fall 2017 - Heir of Grief Ultimate.
Winter/Holidays 2017 - Commission Compilation Album.
Over the course of 2017 - Commissions, personalized thank you notes/doodles.
In the meantime, I will try to keep these updates going with things like periodic previews. Speaking of which, here's another track:
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign update)
Album Art & Preview #5
I'm happy to finally be able to reveal the front art for the album. It is intended to be a bit of a visual callback to the first album cover, albeit with some new characters.
Musically, things are still progressing well and I currently don't foresee any trouble in finalizing the album within the next six weeks. I recently also uploaded another song preview on my youtube channel (link in case embedding is broken):
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign update)
Release Day
The album is out!
https://tenseimusic.bandcamp.com/album/strife-2
If everything went right, MOST backers should have received their download code for the album as soon as it dropped and a minority of them a bit later. If you've donated or backed the appropriate amount (>$10) and haven't received your download code on the same e-mail address you used to make the donation, be sure to check your spam folders (or 'promotions' on gmail).
If you're absolutely positively sure you haven't received a download code, send me a reply (preferably using the same e-mail address as the one you used to donate), and I'll see about getting a copy of the album in your hands.
Art
You'll notice that, as of now, not every song on the album has its own track art. Unfortunately, the artist that I originally wanted to commission had some personal issues and was therefore only able to finish the album cover art in time. I decided to not delay the album solely for the sake of track art. Instead, I'll add new track art to the album as it's finished up. The intent is still for every song on the album to have track art and have all of the artwork in a nice PDF booklet with liner notes as well.
Compilations
I'll be sending the compilation albums out in bulk as well, hopefully within the next few days (it takes some time to convert all the music to different formats). Keep an eye out on your e-mails.
Commissions
I'll contact you individually to talk about what you want. If you haven't been contacted yet, don't fret: quite a lot of people have paid for commissions so it will take a while (probably the rest of the year) to process all of it. Ideally, try to come up with your request ahead of time: specific directions and requests for the commission make my job easier.
All that being said, I hope the album is to everyone's liking!
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign update)
Your Commissions
Happy post-Easter!
I know it's taken a while to get started on the commissions, but I really wanted to take a break after working on Strife 2 nonstop to recharge my creative batteries.
If you've backed for one (or more) of the commission perks, please send me a message through indiegogo containing a description of what you're looking for in your commission: the musical style, the mood, use of certain instruments, etc. Images are also welcome to be included if the commission is intended to be connected to a certain character or location, as are musical references (i.e. if you want your song to sound like a certain other song, be sure to include the name/artist).
Keep in mind that the more details you give me to work with, the more likely it'll be that the finished product will correspond to what you are looking for.
Also do note that there are about 50 commission orders in all, so it will probably take the better part of the year to work through all of these. I will be releasing each commission as soon as it's done, as well as a final free compilation album at the very end.
I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of commission requests people have come up with!
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign update)
Technical Difficulties
Hey guys,
So with the 12th of june looming, I figure it's time for a bit of a status update!
I've had quite the busy month here, including some family issues and a nasty bit of hardware failure with my work computer. Fortunately, due to some meticulous back-ups, I haven't lost the project files for any of the commissions or Noir album tracks. However, having to reinstall and re-register all my music creation software is taking up quite a bit of time and causing a fair number of issues (digging up ancient license keys, resolving compatibility between different software versions etc.), to the point where I might have to restart a fair amount of the project files from scratch.
In short, the release of the Noir album (and the commissions) will have to be delayed a bit. I'm hesitant to give an estimate along the lines of 'A few weeks' (loaded phrase), but that does seem to be the time frame I'm currently looking at. The commissions and other rewards should still roughly be on schedule to release within 2017.
I'll be sure to give an update with a more exact date of release as soon as I have things a bit more sorted out on my end. Thank you for your understanding!
Tensei: (Indiegogo campaign update)
An Update
Hi all,
It's been a while, I know.
First of all, I'd like to apologize for my continued radio silence here and on most other social media. I have a hard time justifying it and I absolutely should know better given my background in Communication.
I also want to clarify that I have not forgotten about this campaign at all and it has, in fact, been on my mind pretty much every day for the past year. Painfully so, at times.
To put it simply: for about a year now, I've found it very hard to actually make music. While there are some possible external causes I could identify for this, I don't intend to use these to make excuses for myself.
Right now, I'm sitting on dozens of unfinished projects for both the Noir album and commissions. For the vast majority of them I'm simply not satisfied with the quality to the point where I'd be comfortable with publishing them and considering it an adequate return for the money and patience you've all given me so far.
When I took this project on, I had confidence that I could hit all the deadlines I'd set for myself because, up until that point, I'd always been able to do so. I've been making music on commission for almost a decade and never had any issues with productivity or hitting a certain deadline, so I had no reason to assume that it would be any different for this project.
To realize that, even with the best will in the world, I'm suddenly unable to fulfill my commitments on time is a scary feeling. I didn't handle this well.
Okay, I'm not going to make the deadline, but I'll just post an update with a huge preview of impressive tracks to compensate and that'll make it okay.
And that's where the problem laid. I didn't want to make any kind of update 'empty-handed', or admit (both to myself and to backers) that I wasn't making any significant headway. Whenever I said I was working on music, I truly was trying to do so, but I was never really satisfied with what I created.
I hope this gives a bit more insight into the reasons behind the delays and the lack of communication from my side.
All that said, I don't intend for this to be some kind of cancellation announcement or anything like that, and want to offer some assurance as well: I'm still as committed as ever to finishing all the commissions, the Noir album and the Heir of Grief remake. It will just take longer.
I'm very hesitant about setting any kind of solid deadlines for myself at this point but I hope I'll have something substantial to show off over the course of the year.
Thank you all for your continued patience, support and understanding.
- Tensei
G4M3 OR D13 Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify
nights: (alternate artwork, Tumblr)
The King in Red (Beta) Listen on: YouTube
If you bought Homestuck volume 7, you might be familiar with the bonus track I did on there, “White Host/Green Room”, which had this garbled cameo of several Homestuck songs in the intro. If that’s the case, this song might sound familiar because it actually appeared in there for a bit.
Its full name is “The King in Red”, and its supposed to be this weird pseudo-classical apocalyptic black metal remix of Karkat's Theme. The reason I never finished this up is because I was pretty dissatisfied with the choir samples, which simply weren’t up to the task.
Human voice is said to be the single hardest thing to emulate through samples, which I guess is because people are generally used to hearing human voices all the time, so they’re much more likely to pick up on stuff that sounds ‘off’ than in the case of, for example, a sampled hurdy gurdy.
In a lot of ways, it’s kinda similar to the uncanny valley problem with visual art; making a convincing and realistic human face through 3D modelling is very hard to pull off, and I don’t think it’s been seriously attempted since the Final Fantasy movie (And we all know how that turned out for them).
Even modern CGI movies like Avatar avoid the concept by creating a distinctly alien race that gets just enough humanlike features to make them look relatable and 'cute’.
Unite Division (Beta) Listen on: YouTube
Here’s another work in progress. This one is for Jack who is possessed by Lord English, so it uses a bit of the melody from “Black”. It also borrows quite a bit from Arakune’s Theme from the game Blazblue. I tried to give it a bit of a neoclassical feel in the same way as “Dance of Thorns”.
Heel Girl (Beta) Listen on: YouTube
Something I started today. It’s gonna be a song for evil!Jade. Title is “Heel, Girl”
Strife 2
Main album (1–12)
Bonus tracks (13–20)