Here's the surprise album that I promised. For anyone who's been following me over the past few months, they'll have probably noticed that I feel deeply in love with Final Fantasy VIII. It was my first real FF game and, for what may be the first time since I started seriously playing games, I found one that forced me to reevaluate how I viewed games artistically. I'm also not ashamed to admit that it made me choked up multiple times. More time than any movie or book in recent memory. At a time when things felt (and to an extent still feel) really bleak, it was nice to feel something other than dread or worry. The score really helped and I was inspired to rerecord my interpretations of the songs. 
In between working on our next release, Dragon, I started recording songs from Nobuo Uematsu's incredible soundtrack. The songs are roughly divided (see what I did there) between disintegrated ambient, warm synth instrumentals and more abstract drone pieces. Many of the songs were recorded by playing them first on a keyboard or piano, playing that through an amp or Television and then recording that through a microcassette dictation recorder. Those recorded on microcassette would then be recorded back into my computer where they would be treated. These pieces in particular have a fragile and distant sound that texturally sounds disintegrated and strange. It's warped, warm and sort of sad. I really love the sound I got out of it. The latter third of the album has pieces which used those recordings and blew them out to make something far removed from the original soundtrack piece. You can make out where the original is but its hidden beneath blankets of flickering sound and samples. On a lot of the pieces I also layered in various cello parts recorded by Diana over the past few years (though they admittedly, like many of the instrumentals, don't quite resemble the original recording). 
I did the record as a change of pace. A pallet cleanser and an attempt to view music from a different direction. It's also a way of me trying to express how moved something else made me. In another way, doing pieces like this has allowed me to sit with our songs on Dragon and really make sure they're the best work that we can make. I believe my own compositions have benefited from this. Expect those songs/that album sometime in March (maybe later, who knows).  I feel like I'm articulating it all very poorly so I'll end it here. I hope you enjoy.

Rough Divide

Balamb

Lo-Fi Ambient Drone. Sometimes a pop song comes out. Used to make music under the name Swimmingpool The Band. 


Balamb

Mall Ghosts