Your Majesty - Commentary
754 words across 10 entries.
Your Majesty Your Majesty (album commentary) Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube (playlist), Spotify, Apple Music
Michael Guy Bowman: (Bandcamp about blurb / album booklet)
When the future is uncertain it can be easy to romanticize the past. In fairy tales we imagine that the world was once a more beautiful place where magic explained the mysteries of life. The probing tools of science were once the simmering cauldrons of alchemy. We trusted our leaders completely as the righteous defenders of a higher order which placed ourselves at the center of the universe.
We are tempted to return to this mythic era. The epic tales of old generations bewilder us with stories of glorious quests and lives of adventure. All of it seems to be disappearing just beyond the horizon of a new world that has become petrified with frightful complexity. We treasure the artifacts that remain from simpler times, believing in vain that they might unlock hidden entrances to unspoiled realms.
Though the arrow of time pushes us ceaselessly beyond the dominion of our half-remembered past, we hold onto a belief that we are meant for something more than the cold reality that we face - too obvious, too impersonal. We imagine this is only a dark age between the reign of two great kingdoms, the next greater than the first. It is a seductive belief, and potentially dangerous.
And yet, occasionally, we must indulge these fantasies. We romanticize the past because we remember once that we were able to romanticize the future. To permit legendary origins is to hope for a destiny beyond our crude surroundings. We have the choice to see life as a brief epitaph or as the unfolding chapters of a grand saga. Which way will you turn?
Michael Guy Bowman: (composer, Michael Guy Bowman Talks About His Homestuck Music, adapted to text)
"How much has your process changed between Mobius Trip and earlier works, and Ulterior Motives?" You know, aside from like, the software changes, I think I have experimented with - doing things in different orders. Some of the time I was doing things with, like, intention to produce the beat, or come up with the instrumentation or something first, and sometimes I was doing things lyrically first, and trying to have um, a song written in an instrument. Actually, lately, since Ulterior Motives, coming up on this new album - that's been the main focus, is to move over from trying to do things with any production idea really in place, and have complete demos, just like a normal singer-songwriter, and then go in and start arranging them as if you're in the studio, and be your own producer.
[...] "When writing music with lyrics, do you write music-first or lyric-first?" Yeah, see, that's why I was like, so nuanced on the other answer. Because you already know - sometimes, I do one or the other. But these days, I would say when I'm writing "lyric first", what I mean to say is that I'm writing lyrics with chords. And sometimes, I have a melody in mind, and I have to like, do settings to the melody - and I think, the challenge for me as a songwriter right now, comes from the synthesis of that - saying, here's the format, and how do you better fit the format? And the result is poetry.
Michael Guy Bowman: (Bowmantown Discord)
how exactly do you decide on like, the musical style of an album?
This time around I wanted to focus on working just with acoustic guitar and vocals at a couple of open mics, so I based the arrangements on that
And the strongest ideas that emerged early on were sort of fantasy based
So I was conscious of that both as an intent for writing and a guideline for what I picked to refine
And in the end it felt like "Your Majesty" the song was the centerpiece because it's about heroism which unifies the images on the album
Like the colorful characters you might find on an epic adventure
I think I'm sort of conscious of what does and doesn't go together on all of these and picking which ideas to develop is a bit strategic
Something's coming...
Michael Guy Bowman: (Twitter, excerpt)
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT
Your Majesty
Coming August 9
Michael Guy Bowman: (Twitter, excerpt)
Bijan Eghtesady drums on all the tracks on the new album! He is the drummer for approximately 500 bands and can crush coal into a diamond with his bare hands. Check him out on my last 2 albums and also with @bonehengeband, @whydogswhy and his solo stuff!
Michael Guy Bowman: (Twitter, excerpt)
Caught up with Bonnie Maddox who plays accordion on the new album! Listen up for her on "Overboard" 🪗
Alice Hu: (cover artist, Twitter)
Some concept sketches of the cover art for Your Majesty!
Bijan Eghtesady: (drums, Twitter, excerpt)
new mgb album is out today! it's all bangers imo go listen
Your Majesty
Track list (1–12)