By Blackhole not-terezi-pyrope Tumblr blackholesc SoundCloud.
Cover art by Taylor Leong tomato-bird Tumblr.
Released 4/12/2016.
Duration: 4:29.

Listen on Bandcamp or YouTube.

Read artist commentary.

Tracks that reference ♋ - Civil Discussi9n:

From Fandom:

• Rex Duodecim Daemonia X (ReDuX) by Veritas Unae

Lyrics:

(Now I realize we’ve been at this for some time already, but at the risk of derailing the dialogue you initiated, and may I just say how thrilled I am that you did, Karkat, I would just like to qualify my entire analysis of your “Alternian culture” by saying that in contrast with life on Beforus, while your people may have been engaged in violent, lethal class struggle for millions of sweeps, by no means does that imply that the Beforan way of life was entirely without problematic elements, perhaps even more disturbing and insidious for their lack of acknowledgement and open discussion, particularly as a consequence of what in my view were widely and dismayingly unexamined systemic social injustices resulting from the entrenched power dynamics in play, dynamics strikingly similar to those of your planet’s markedly more... bellicose iteration, which has only served to vindicate my hypothesis that such a hierarchy is really predicated on intrinsic dysfunction, and failure to shift all the usual narratives and undiagnosed problems into an open, judgment-free discourse through which problematic issues are constructively channeled into more intelligently problematized avenues of discussion. Now before I continue—)

Artist commentary:

Blackhole:

Civil Discussi9n was my first purposeful musical contribution to the album! I wanted to produce a track that captured the feeling of Kankri's self-assured snobbery and pseudo-intellectualism as it was presented in his first appearance in Openbound, but from his own perspective. I imagine the feel of the track is rather what Kankri thinks of himself in his crusade for social justice. The structure of the melody was inspired by certain works of baroque classical music, although I can hardly have been said to have stuck to any one particular convention! The track was originally intended to be modified somewhat, but due to technical issues I lost the progress file for it! Hoewver I didn't want to see what I had to waste, and I believe that the track stands up solidly on its own in its current form. I hope you think so too!

Taylor Leong:

For this piece, I was thinking particularly about how the track is meant to be how Kankri views himself within the greater context of Beforan society. I thought that the classical Baroque influences in the music really reflected the rigid pseudo-benevolent social strucutre and pretensions within Beforan society that Kankri seeks to criticize and improve upon, albeit in his own flawed way. Visually, I drew influences from various religious artworks, including Medieval iconography as well as the Baroque paintings of Caravaggio, referencing both Kankri and the Sufferer's roles as a play on traditional literary Christ figures. Overall, Kankri takes himself extremely seriously, and the track art reflects that self-image in the form of a somber, messianic martyr heroically withstanding the persection of people triggering and encroaching upon his personal space.