By Circlejourney circlejourney Bandcamp circlejourney SoundCloud Circlejourney YouTube circlejourneyart Tumblr circlejourney Twitter circlejourney.net Other machinasolis SoundCloud.
Cover art by Josefin B. konansgirlfriend Tumblr.
Released 9/9/2019.
Duration: 3:55.

Listen on Bandcamp.

Read artist commentary.

Contributors:

• Grace Medley power46 Bandcamp user-743933328 SoundCloud power464646 Twitter power464646 Tumblr (production)

Artist commentary:

Circlejourney:

Q: Briefly describe the process of working on your track/illustration!

I really only composed on What Once Was. It was an experiment with instrument sounds, but I found it hard to continue. So I put the unfinished track in the server, and I don't remember how it happened but Grace stepped in and offered to finish it, and I thought her style would fit my vision for it perfectly. She overhauled the instruments, produced it to realise the sound I was going for, and bam, we had some album-worthy material!

Q: What's your favourite Steven Universe song?

Oh, this is tough, but I'm gonna say Peace and Love (On Planet Earth)! It captures a peaceful but critical moment between life-threatening conflicts. It casually juxtaposes life and death, peace and war, without making a big deal about the drama of it all. It's just Peridot learning about Earth with Steven, and coming to a gradual realisation that it's worth protecting. For a song that marks such a transformative moment, it's very subdued, and I love it for that.

Josefin B.:

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself and your art/music!

Not much to tell! I'm a hobbyist who likes projects like this, because it gives me an incentive to actually finish my art, haha! I've been working full time for almost three years but I recently got into university, so hopefully now I'll have the time to do more art.

Q: Briefly describe the process of working on your track/illustration!

The Murals [editor's note: since retitled to What Once Was] track art was trickier, and I actually spent two weeks trying to make another concept work. But the night before deadline I realized I had to scrap it and start over. So I went more stylized, more dynamic and interesting to look at. I actually love the end result and I'm glad I started over.

Q: What were your favourite moments in the show?

When Steven travels into Pearl's gem and sees Rose kill Pink, only for Rose to look up with Pearl's eyes. It was such a good payoff for the entire mystery and at least to me it was super impactful. Truly a feeling of a final puzzle piece falling into place.

Other than that I really love when Blue was fighting the crystal gems. She's my favourite character and I was thrilled with the screen time, haha.

Q: What's your favourite thing about the illustration you made?

For Murals, the fact that it's not the idea I originally had, haha. I really like Pink's pose and I think the starry sky behind the black silhuette of her palanquin looks really pretty.

Q: What do you like most about [the character(s)/location(s) that you drew]?

For Pink, I like the Utena-ish aesthethic. She's just a fun character. For the locations, all I can say is that I think they look cool, haha!