By Rachel Rose Mitchell rachelrosemitchell Bandcamp YouTube YouTube.
Cover art by Spectrumfizz.
Released 12/25/2012.
Duration: 3:13.

Listen on Bandcamp or YouTube.

Read artist commentary.

Artist commentary:

Rachel Rose Mitchell: (composer, booklet commentary)

Planetarium was the first piece of Homestuck fan music I ever made. I'd only just caught up with the archives when I was set a composition assignment for university. Having never used Logic to compose before, I had fun playing with a bunch of the different inbuilt instruments. When I found the koto, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I tried to make it sound somewhat ethereal and otherworldly to represent the Incipisphere in all its beautiful weirdness. To try to do that, I threw a whole lot of reverb and delay at pretty much every track. I really did not know what I was doing, but it was fun.

The vocal lines were an afterthought. Actually, no, they were less than an afterthought. They weren't actually something I thought I should include at all, but the assignment had a requirement of at least four recorded audio tracks. I threw those lines together at home on Cubase (I don't actually have a Mac, let alone Logic!) the morning the piece was drew it, slapped them onto the piece with Logic that day and got the assignment in just in time. But in the end, I think they enhanced the feel of the piece, so I'm kind of glad I had to chuck them in there!

Spectrumfizz: (track artist, booklet commentary)

This is probably my favoured piece from my two more serious ones. I wanted to make a layout reminiscent of an actual planetarium, and I think I achieved that well (the "strings" hanging up the planets are simultaneously that and the kids' houses built up towards Skaia, which indicates that I kind of overthought this). I'm actually pretty fond of how the tiny Beat Mesa and Prospit's moon turned out.

Oh yeah, the song itself is also SUPER pretty (I'm surprised I managed to snag such a lovely song to make art for), but you'll know that already considering you're probably listening to it right now.