#music

My brain chemistry is hardwired to enjoy this stuff.

I’ve been addicted to music for as long as I remember.

And music has always been with me, always been there for me, no matter where I went, or how deep in shambles I was.

Always there, always comforting, as I was
Always breaking, always healing.

I owe a great lot to the artists whose music has kept me company all these years. It is through these blog posts, (as well as direct support through buying their albums), I hope I can give them back a little something precious: a piece of my imagination, through writing.

Something in return for all the emotions they managed to spark within me.
Something in return for the years of resonance with my heart and soul.

for Her
my Guardian Angel
Music

Production

Making music is something that gives me great joy and is really fun and I like doing it :3

You can check out my discography here. Here are some highlights:

I don’t really use anything other than Bitwig Studio, the bundled presets and sample packs, field recordings (both my own and sourced online), and Pianobook samplers when making music.
Probably other samples too, sometimes. Like, I’ve used Half-Life samples and sampled some of my favourite songs in the past.

I’m not much of a VST-head because I really like how integrated by default Bitwig is as a whole, and I’ve never really felt much of a need to step outside those bounds.
There are cases where I’ll begrudgingly load a VST into the DAW, only to have it crash after 5 minutes of use, and then reload it, and then have it work for the rest of the day until I go to reload the project, (I hate you Decent Sampler.)
Bleh.

I’d probably use nothing but the built-in devices, if not for the fact there aren’t really very good piano samples in Bitwig’s libraries.

I don’t play any instruments and don’t really know any formal music theory. In other words: I have no idea what I’m doing (well yes but not really)

Taste

For those wondering about my music taste, here’s a few words about artists I like:

  • The Flashbulb has a really interesting discography. I like how his style went from really fun breakcore, through cinematic ambiences (my favourites as of late), back to more fun IDM type stuff with a pint of jazz.

    His music resonates with my emotions in just the right way, no matter which album it’s from.

    Oh, and did I mention he has a really cool YouTube channel?

  • C418 is most famously known for Minecraft, but I’ve been listening to his other albums, especially Excursions and 148, for way longer than I’ve been in love with Volume Alpha and Beta. And even then, I’ve basically never listened to the Minecraft albums while playing Minecraft oh

    I strongly recommend that you give the rest of his discography a shot. I love Excursions for the same reasons I love The Flashbulb’s cinematic ambiences, and 148 for just how cool it is. Remixes of Volume Beta from the one and only himself? Heck yeah!!

  • Kettel never fails to disappoint me with how playful, fun, and childlike his music makes me feel. Granted I haven’t really explored the entirety of his discography, but what I’ve heard, made me wanna feel only positive things toward the world.

    I recommend giving Wingtip a listen for its joyful melodies that pluck at your heartstrings, and Dubio a listen for how beautifully it paints landscapes. It’s so good it gives me synaesthesia every time.

  • Secede’s Tryshasla is my favourite album as of late. Which may have already become my favourite album of all time at this pace, it is so good.

    There’s a sense of story, worldbuilding, and magic in that album like no other. I would’ve written a blog post about it already, if not for the fact that I get immersed in the ambiences so hard I kind of don’t really know how to put my feelings into words.

    You should also give When Can a listen. It combines the best parts of Secede’s worldbuilding, with the best parts of Kettel’s fun melodies.

  • Disasterpeace is an artist I haven’t listened to enough, mostly just FEZ and Hyper Light Drifter. I played both games and really enjoyed their soundtracks.

    He really has a way with synthesisers and interesting harmonies. He’s been a great inspiration in my music-making, so much so that I’ve directly referenced his soundtracks multiple times in my works.

    He’s just that good.

  • Boards of Canada is really interesting to me because on the one hand, it scratches the itch of nostalgia synthwave did for most people while it was trending, except BoC music is actually well-designed and interesting and not rehashing old tropes.

    …That really doesn’t give their music justice. Let’s try that again.

    Boards of Canada is what would happen if you had two really talented people with great imagination trapped in a room with a bunch of old synthesisers. And what they come up with is music that sounds somewhat if it came out of the 80s or 90s, but it’s actually really quite modern and interesting and experimentative. And also they encode a whole bunch of subliminal messages and secrets in it. And a whole community spawns around the cryptic parts of their albums, because it’s really frickin’ interesting.

    Give Inferno a listen.

  • Toby Fox is an artist I’ve been purposefully avoiding from including near the top or on the front page, because mentioning him even briefly will inevitably summon fellow Undertale and Deltarune fans to gush about his music in my emails, being all like, “okay I don’t know these other artists but I know Toby Fox, therefore our tastes must be similar, let’s talk about only this single one we have in common”

    …like that ever happened. Ha! (It didn’t)

    But I do fear including him on this list, because to be frank I’m not super much into video game soundtracks outside of Deltarune, (says guy who listens to Minecraft, FEZ, and Hyper Light Drifter on the regular),

    Okay this is embarrassing. Do I really need to explain myself as to why I love his music so much? You know it all too well anyways. B-baka.

  • Machine Girl is what I’ve been listening to lately when I need something fast and loud.

    I first heard of them from the Neon White soundtrack (*yoink* another one into the “video game soundtracks” bin), and later explored a bit to see what kind of music they make. The cover arts are… a bit gruesome, but the music itself is a bop.

    The themes of insanity found on MG Ultra have been resonating with me surprisingly often for some reason. I could probably chalk it up to undiagnosed ADHD or something.

I think that’s all I’ll write about for now. I listen to so much music it’s a bit impossible to mention every artist I like in one sitting!

I’ll probably be updating it from time to time, so if you want to see more, check back here in a year or something.

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