As you may have noticed, songs aren’t coming at the rate of one a week anymore. This is mostly because my life has been quite a bit busier since about September, even without the Poison Ivy Mysteries music needing to be written. I will eventually get 52 Weeks of Songs written; they just may not be consecutive weeks. Don’t worry, though; it won’t take like five years or anything; I’m still planning on ending sometime. So stay tuned: there will still be stuff coming out!
Week 32: “Bring ’em Through” (demo)
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This is one of the songs I wrote for the current Poison Ivy Mysteries show: Murdered…FOR SCIENCE! It’s basically the process that one of the scientists goes through invoking time travel, helped by his assistant. This particular version is the demo track I recorded for rehearsal purposes, so I’m voicing both parts. Tickets are still available this week at poisonivymysteries.com!
Week 31: “Up in Ashes”
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Well, the Poison Ivy Mysteries break took longer than I thought. I’ll eventually upload the songs I wrote for it in September as part of the 52 Weeks project, but I’m holding off until the show’s run is over to avoid possible spoilers (and I’m not uploading the finale, for similar reasons).
In any case, this week’s installment I wrote as a sort of theme song to a Pathfinder campaign that my friend Sheldyn has been running called “Up in Ashes.” We stream it live at twitch.tv/progstorm (Sheldyn posts the schedule on his twitter feed @Progstorm), and you can catch the VODs at youtube.com/progstormrising if you wanna catch up with what we’ve done so far. It’s been pretty fun; I’ve been playing a somewhat quirky halfling rogue named Jocko, but probably the two stars of our campaign so far have been characters played by my roommate Johnathan (playing a dwarven sorcerer named Blazebeard who keeps setting things on fire, such as a brothel), and Sheldyn’s stepdad Ron (playing a human fighter named Borric with a thick Texan drawl who keeps threatening to send all the kobolds we’ve been fighting to “Kobold Hell” and almost got eaten by gelatin).
Poison Ivy Mysteries break!
Just a quick update: the new Poison Ivy Mysteries show, Murdered for SCIENCE!, is coming out in October. I’m writing the songs for it this month, so my updates for 52 Weeks will be somewhat irregular this month (I don’t want to post the songs for that show as part of this project). Don’t worry: I will end up posting four songs in September at some point; but I won’t be posting every Sunday again until October.
Thanks, and keep on listenin’!
Week 30: “Backwards”
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This is more of an experimental sketch than an actual finished song/piece, and mostly consists of the same piano lines played forward and backward with the express purpose of creeping you out. I would’ve liked to have the tempo not be as rigid, but too much rubato and the backwards parts wouldn’t have lined up correctly. Oh, well.
Week 29: “SaXon Geat A Capella”
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This mostly came about because I was pressed for time during this week (one roommate came into my place just as the other was leaving, and the place was a giant mess), so I threw a bunch of old SaXon Geat songs into the EastWest choir library. If I had more time I would’ve tried to tweak it to not make it sound so obviously fake at parts, but overall I think it turned out at least somewhat interesting. SaXon Geat was a band that my brother Ben founded in high school, and I still have most of the MIDI files of songs we wrote for the band to play. The songs here were written by myself, Ben, and our mutual friend Dave Omer way back in the late 90’s. In order, they are:
- 0:00 – Love at the Regional Dance
- 2:48 – Lightning
- 6:03 – The Pez Anthem
- 8:47 – Samba Dee’s Cryin’
- 10:47 – Sailboat to Hades
Week 28: “Crickets”
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I seem to be doing a lot of dance mixes lately. This one actually starts as a chill, ambient track, but ramps it up in the middle. I guess I’m doing a lot of these because I’ve been playing some indie games recently, which basically all have the same type of soundtrack that sounds like this. Guess why it’s called “Crickets”! Go on, guess!
Week 27: “Interstellar Thumping”
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We’re back, with a trance mix! You should play this at your local dance and see how much it screws up people’s stock dance moves, since it’s in 5/4. Go on, do it! Report back the hilarity!
The Return
Get ready everyone! After a month hiatus, I’m-a comin’ back!
(note: the music is “Crushed Rainbow”, shortened and sweetened.)
Week 26: “Half a Song”
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I’m halfway done with this project! To celebrate, here’s half a song. (It’s not even really half a song; it barely constitutes a chorus, but whatever.)
Also, an announcement: I’m taking July off with this project. I feel like I’m burning out a little bit on this, plus with some extra time I can build up a backlog of songs that will have taken more than two hours to throw together. Don’t worry, I’ll still end up doing 52 weeks; it’s just that I’ll end up bleeding into January of 2015. Thanks y’all for listening, and I’ll see you back here in August!
52 Weeks of Music! 