3.5k words across 21 entries.

On the Rox Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube (playlist), Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

Hopefully if you're reading this, the album actually came out.

In all seriousness, This album has been a massive undertaking for me personally. What started out as a passing idea for an album idea I had in December of 2018, quickly turned into one of my most ambitious projects to date. However, I think in the end it was worth it. The album started as a simple "One Year Older" copycat album about my favorite character Roxy Lalonde. In the end, I think I've really created an album that stands on it's own merits as an album. I really like how this album turned out and I hope you do to.

alright time to make so shoutouts to the people who made this album possible.

Firstly, I would like to think PotatoBoss for having enough faith in me to do this album in the first place. Next, I would like all the artists who did the beautiful art for this album. The album wouldn't be anywhere near as good without their pieces and they all deserve a big pat on the back. I would also like to think Spades and the other music feedback lords for giving me really good feedback on every song on this album and tolerating my many pings. I want to thank fellow PMT musician, Chromaphasia, for performing piano on the last track on the album. Next, I want to give a very special thanks to Thomas "Eidolon" Ferkol for providing a MIDI for "Voidlight" which is remixed on this album. I would also like to thank Andrew Hussie for creating Homestuck and writing one of the most compelling characters in media. But most importantly, Thank YOU!!! for taking time to listen to my album.

Without Further Ado, I present to you On The Rox.

On Apocalyptic Shores Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

So when I got the news that I would be doing a solo album, I got really excited and wrote this song. The main melody came during an improv session on piano (which you will hear on some future version of the soundtest) and I liked it so much that I arranged it. The song serves as the main theme of the entire album and a theme for Roxy. I wanted the song to represent Roxy at the beginning of their character arc, the state of the world they live in pre-session, and they events to come with the start of the alpha session. You'll probably hear it sprinkled through out the album as leitmotif. I think I went a little overboard with quoting it but I'm pretty proud of this song so it's fine...hopefully lol.

Technostalgia Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

Technostalgia is like one of my many forays into synthwave featured on this album. For me I mainly associate Roxy with futuristic sounding music. What more futuristic than 80's synthpop lol. Anyway, I actually like this track quite a bit. I would probably say its one of the more solid tracks on the album as it's the one of the few tracks I didn't constantly want to fix during development lol. The song is meant to be a nice chill out theme for Roxy as they talk with the other Alphas. I was somewhat inspired by the VA-11 Hall-A soundtrack and the track "Safe Haven." The songs on that soundtrack where perfect for creating a relaxing and chill atmosphere, and I thought something similar would be perfect for Roxy talked to their friends. Also if you're wondering why I chose "Technostalgia" as a name I didn't really have a reason it just sounded cool to say lmao

A City of Black and White Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

For this song, I wanted to make something a little more simple and light-hearted to capture the somewhat silly nature of the carapacians . I've always loved the carapacian city that roxy lived on and the ways the inhabits lived. Not really much else to say on this song. Also keep your ear out for the OAS quote cause I put it in over half of the songs on this album, including this one.

Through the Looking Glass Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

So this song was my first attempt at writing synthwave and one of the earlier song i wrote for the album. Fans of Beforusbound may recognize this track as PB remixed it for his song "Trident Thief," which was pretty cool because it was the first time one of my tracks was remixed. Anyway, I wanted to write a track that would fit for all the skaianet stuff the Roxy was involved with. I initially wanted to write a cool lo-fi track that would utilize windows start noises, but I scrapped that in favor learning how to write synthwave. I already talked about why I chose synthwave in the commentary for "Technostalgia" but I felt like synthwave was especially fitting for skaianet since it's essentially every evil corporation from 80's action films. The title "Through the Looking Glass" refers to the way roxy would use the fenestrated planes to travel from their lab and other places in their home. For a first attempt at a genre I wasn't familiar with I think I did pretty well.

Broken Bottles, Broken Dreams Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

This song is definitely one of the darker songs on the album imo. For Broken Bottles, Broken Dreams I wanted to capture the Roxy's struggles with addiction and the depression that comes with it. I always felt like Roxy's Struggles with alcoholism to be the part of the reason why i think they're such a compelling character. Despite the gravity of the matter, I could not make album all about roxy without at least having one song about their addiction. As for the song itself, I took lot of influence from the soundtrack of Silent Hill, whose somber and moody tones just seemed perfect for this type of track.

Sleepwalker Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

So everybody remembers [S]Sleepwalk right? Well I loved that flash cause it gave us an interesting introduction to main characters of act 6. When this album was being planned, this was one of the songs I just knew that i needed to do. In order to try and create a dreamy atmosphere, I utilized a shit-ton of effects and even went as far to create some of my own synths. I took a lot of influence from the track "Resurrections" from the Celeste soundtrack. I really liked that song and tried to emulate a similar feel in this track. The song initially started as that little piano melody that you hear in the beginning of the album and slowly grew from there. Also fans of Beforusbound may notice that I used this melody in my song "Nostalgic Landscapes." My favorite part of this track is the way i utilized Derse Dreamers as a bassline towards the end of the track. It's definitely one of my more ambient and weird tracks on the album.

Communing With Fireflies Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

Continuing in the trend of songs about dreams is Communing With Fireflies. This track is kind of a weird love letter to the soundtrack of Earthbound. It utilizes a bunch of samples from the earthbound soundfont as well as some composition elements. I came up for the idea for this track listening to Calliope's half of the album Cherubim. Listening to Stellarum Salve and the earthbound-y sound of that song inspired me to make communing with fireflies. Much like with Sleepwalker, I utilized a bunch of effects to create a dreamy atmosphere. If sleepwalker was a voyage into a nebulous dreamscape, the Communing With Fireflies is a sweet dream you don't want to wake up from. Honestly I love Roxy's and Calliope's dynamic and i wanted to make a song to match.

Saboteur Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

This song is technically the oldest song on the entire album. I originally started this song as a roxy strife theme back during the development of STLaP 2. It was initially going to be a remix of Thomas Ferkol's track "Wily Espionage." Unfortunately, I was having a really hard time making this song come together and I eventually got so frustrated that I took it off the album. Despite my frustration, I still wanted to finish it at some point. When I got the news that I gonna be able to do my solo album, I saw a perfect opportunity to actually finish it. The version of the song you are hearing is dramatically different from the original demo. Aside from some drums and a synth or two, very few elements from the stlap 2 demo exist in this version. I even decided to make the song completely mostly original with a reference to OAS towards the end. The few thing remains from the old version of this song is the name "Saboteur," which makes slightly less sense since it's no longer a remix of "Wily Espionage." I do still like as a title because it signifies what it used to be back in the day.

As for what the song is about, it was initially going to be Roxy fighting Her Imperial Condescension in Collide but i decided to make it about the time they fight the invading alternian drones. Overall I think this is one of the better tracks on the album and one of the few early tracks that I didn't have to touch up all that much.

Also if you're curious the original demo for this is on the soundtest

-Interlude- Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

So this song is a little bit strange since it's essentially a glorified disk jingle. I wrote interlude to act as a sort of album break marking the halfway point of the album. I recognized pretty early on that this album was gonna be pretty long so i planned accordingly. But i also thought that it would be a waste of a song slot if i simply just had like a 10-second jingle for the interlude. So instead i wrote a quick little remix of Malcolm Brown's Unite Synchronization. This song is pretty iconic and one of the main songs people think of when they think of act 6, so deciding to remix it was a no brainer.

Think of this song as representing the narrative transition that occurs when the alpha enter the medium. We go from the relative familiarity of earth into a whole new world, full of new trial and tribulations. The little transition at the end is meant to represent them finally entering the medium for the first time. Speaking of which... (Continued!)

Neon Haze Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

So when I was developing On the Rox, my biggest influence on my work was the album "One Year Older" by Erik Scheele. It's pretty obvious why I did. It's a really good album and does what I wanted to do for this album. While our albums are not one-to-one, it's still pretty clear that I took ques from it.

I say all this to try and explain what I was going for with this song. On "One Year Older" there is a track about LoWaS called "Firefly Cloud." It's a great song and I really wanted to do something similar, so going into I tried emulating firefly cloud as much as possible. The result was this, probably one of my most powerful and largest sounding song to date. I really wanted to capture that sense of wonder and majesty that we all felt when we say the alpha kids' lands for the first time. I even quoted Even in Death to call back to the flash [S] Void. While i don't think I achieved a similar sound to firefly cloud, I do think that I did get something pretty good. If you are a fan of my long songs (which have become a meme at this point but whatever) you'll probably like this lol.

Meditations On Derse Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

This is by far the my weirdest song I've ever written. I wanted to create a song that was captured that feeling of roxy trying to create a perfectly generic object for the first time while on derse. but the problem with that concept is that it is so vague and nebulous that I didn't know what it could sound like. Derse has always had this distorted and weird soundscape but i wasn't sure how to apply that to my song. It wasn't until I messed around with repeating soundclips of a synth pad did finally figure out what this song should look like. I took influence from minimalists compositions like those of Phillip Glass in that I focused on a singular repeating motif developing over the span of an entire song. From there I did want came naturally to me. I wanted to make the song make people feel like pieces of puzzle were coming together to form something new.

Sole Survivor Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

Another sad song. [S] Game Over is fairly major part of homestuck and it deserves to be considering what happens in it. However, the moment that always stuck with me was the aftermath of that flash where Rose dies in Roxy's arms. It was one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the entire comic and made me truly understand the gravity of the situation that the surviving cast was going through. For this song, I tried to convey that powerful sorrow through the use of synth and choir. I really wanted to sell the feeling the hopelessness and despair that would follow such a massive loss.

Choices Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

Okay so this is my second attempt at writing this song and writing this commentary. I wrote the song that was the first version of "Choices" very early on in the album's development. Despite the fact that I composed it to completion, I was not happy with the final product. I attempted to add and tweak aspects of the track to try an salvage it but nothing seemed to stick. I eventually gave up and resigned myself to the fact that I would have a song I hated on album I put everything into. It wasn't until I was listening through the soundtrack for Anodyne 2 did new ideas start for this song concept begin to emerge. I eventually decided rather than try and polish up a mediocre song, I would make a a completely new song from scratch with the skill I gained over the albums entire development. For this second attempt, I decided to make a track that was far more majestic and awe-inspiring than the original. I thought it was only appropriate considering that Nix is essentially a demigod lol.

As for the song itself, I wanted to create music for the moment that Roxy talked with Nix about their ultimate choice. Interactions with the denizens are not really discussed all that much in canon, so I saw an opportunity to fill in the gaps with this track. I'm really happy with how this turned out and hopefully you are too.

(P.[S]. The original version will be on the second iteration of the soundtest, if you want to listen to that.)

A Future Worth Stealing Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

After a long period of grief, i think it's about time we start to hope again. That's what i said to myself when i started writing this song. I wanted to convey a sense of renewed hope and resolve that Roxy felt after talking with Nix. Not really much else to say honestly.

Reunion Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

This was by far the song I had the most fun writing on the entire album. I took some of the stuff I learned from my previous attempts at synthwave and put an spin on it. I wanted the song to sound as happy and upbeat as humanly possible to convey the feeling of overwhelming joy that Roxy has meeting Rose for the first time. Of course, what song focused around the Lalondes would be complete with a reference to Aggrieve. While this track may be a little derivative of the other synthwave-y tracks on this album, I do think it has enough unique aspects to standout on its own from those other tracks. Probably my favorite moment in this song is that little solo towards the end. I think its the most expressive track on the album and I love it for it.

From the Void Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

Biggest props to Thomas "Eidolon" Ferkol for giving me a MIDI to Voidlight. Without it, this song would not be possible.

So this is definitely one of the more climatic tracs on the album. I technically wrote this song pretty early into development, but that early version of the song kinda sucked ass and so I redid completely. This song is also my first extensive foray into orchestral style writing. I think as a I first attempt at a more faithfully orchestral style it turned out pretty well.

When I first had the idea for this song I wanted to create a "Do You Remem8er me" style song for Roxy and Calliope. [S] Terezi: Remember, was a pretty big flash for me and the parallels between that flash and Roxy's bringing back Calliope from the void were pretty apparent. Trying to match Malcolm Brown's grandiose style is pretty much impossible, but I thought i would still try. While I definitely did get to his level with this song, This is still one of the songs I'm the most proud of on this album.

Fight For the Future Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

Another climactic track and by far my most ambitious track no this album. During, development I just knew that i had to have a track about [S]Collide on this album. It would be an understatement to say that the fight with Her Imperial Condescension in [S] Collide was the most important moment in Roxy's arc. Roxy facing down the person largely responsible for everything bad that has happened in their life is a pretty major moment, and i wanted to capture it in song form.

As for the song itself there is a lot to talk about. The opening Rex Duodecim Angelus makes it pretty apparent that I took a lot of influence from that song. I also took osme influence from the track "Negastrife" from One Year Older. I tried to include motifs from just about every person involved in the fight against HIC. The only person who I failed to have a motif for was Jane, but its fine since she's a xenophobe now lol (thanks homestuck epilogues). Another thing of note is the original motif of this song that is played in the bass for most of this track. I originally came up with the motif messing around with the kirby's dreamland 3 soundfont. I got this really cool sounding bass line that i liked so much I made it the main back bone of this track. The moral of this story is that I am very lazy and you shouldn't listen to me. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how this song turned out. I've never written a Final Boss track before, and I think it came out pretty well.

A Life Worth Living Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

So the epilogue made the development of this album a little bit complicated. Before their release I had pretty clear vision of vision of what Roxy's ending was going to be. Then they came out and to say that they shattered my expectations would be an understatement. So I was left with a ultimatum: either continue as planned or change the album according to the epilogues. I decided that I should go for the former. As much I like the epilogues mechanically, I do not like what it does with the character with a handful of exceptions. As such this album ends with the events of act 7 and credits. it's probably for the best since thee epilogues are a bit controversial.

As for the song itself, I wanted to go for a simple concluding track. I felt like I couldn't really top From the Void and Fight For the Future, so rather than trying to one up those two songs. I figured i would go for a far simpler sounding track. So stuck with a simple piano and some string accompaniment. Big props to fellow PMT member Chromaphasia for playing this on piano as to make it sound as realistic as possible. This track was okay before his performance but with his performance, this track was elevated to one of the best on the album.

Let the Rain Fall Where It May Listen on: YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

You may be wondering why this album is still going. Well there's one more track after this one so you're almost done lol

This track has a bit of history. I initially wrote this for a fantasy RPG idea I had almost two year ago as a character theme. I wanted make this grand adventure starting from the soundtrack than moving to the rest of the game. When I realized that the idea would probably never pan out, I kind of gave up on the idea. However, I still really like this song. It was one of the things that caused me to change my music name to Rainy back in like 2018. It honestly means a lot to me personally just like the rest of this album does, and so I thought it would be cool if featured it on the album in some capacity.

A Life Worth Living (Piano) Listen on: YouTube, Spotify

Rainy: (booklet commentary)

I figured it might be cool to have a version of this track with just the piano of A Life Worth Living. This one's for all you piano lovers out there lol.

Anyway, we're at the end of the album

From the bottom of my heart, thanks you for listening to the end. I hope you enjoyed it <3