This one is mean to go to a pre-race menu like those you find in a Gran Turismo game (take a shot), where there's a flyover of the track in the background. It's meant to add a bit of tension and buildup to the race, much like how they do in the GT games. I love the way I experimented with basically just one or two melodies sitting atop a really simple bassline and structure.

I love writing pieces like these that make really efficient use of material, using a limited amount of ideas to their fullest potential, adding and taking away things just enough and just at the right moments that give a feeling of movement without disrupting the basic throughline underneath it, it's really cool

05 - Afternoon Forecast - Pre-Race Menu

This one was basically an amalgamation of a bunch of SEGA Rally tunes mixed with an amalgamation of a bunch of Gran Turismo 1 (Japanese version, take a shot) racing tunes, the ones composed by Masahiro Andoh. I kinda wish I got more out of this one than I did, both in terms of material and production, but that worry tends to go away when I imagine the race course itself in my mind.

It's meant to go to a large, speedway-type track with large grandstands full of cheering crowds of people with all the sights and sounds of such a place fighting with the music in a really exciting and cathartic manner.

06 - Heartbeat of the Light - Theme of Circuit Tourers Speedway

I initially couldn't decide if Grandiose would fit as an Arcade menu theme, or a credits theme, so I eventually decided "Why not both?". I think it'd be nice to bookend the game with the same track that you (may have) started it with. I say "may have" in brackets because I hadn't initially given the game a separate credits theme just for the career mode, so as far as I was concerned, this was going at the end of the career mode at first.

But once I finished up with The Championship Title and decided where it was going to go, I knew I could just about also make this work as a credits theme if it could go to the Arcade mode, so that neither of them are tramping over each other like they once were.

Like the menu mix, I'm not 100% happy with this, especially with that key change towards the end that I still highly doubt is even pleasurable to listen to, let alone work musically, but still, I knew that I wanted a dramatic key change to be a part of the song's identity, and I thought it'd make for a peppier, more interesting finish. Plus, it kinda helps that it and The Championship Title sorta mirror each other in that respect.

10 - Grandiose (Credits Mix) - Arcade Ending

Much like Grandiose, this was meant to be an experiment in something a bit zanier. I couldn't quite imagine where something like this could fit at first, in fact that kinda goes with most of these, I kinda just decided on a place for them based on their vibe after I finished them. The race themes started with a specific setting in mind first, but these menu themes not so much.

I actually really like the things I did with this one, it has a very hyperactive, but also kinda cheeky and off-kilter vibe, almost like it knows what's ahead more than you do, and it can't wait to show it all to you along your journey.

04 - Combustion - Career Race Select

This one I wrote mainly as an experiment to see how hyperactive I could make an Arcade menu tune, to make it feel very much like you're getting your blood pumping and excited to race, like how the Arcade modes in the older Gran Turismo (take a shot) games do.

I'm not 100% proud of this one, I think it's a bit aimless in places, least of which being the fact that it was largely inspired by a lot of T-Square tunes as well, a lot of which kinda feel like that sometimes, but I still like it for the most part. When I listen to it on a good day, I find myself happy with it.

01 - Grandiose (Menu Mix) - Arcade Mode

This one very much takes inspiration from Gran Turismo 4 (take a shot) in particular. I was initially inspired by the chord progression from GT Mode 4, and how absolutely fucked (good) it is, it's like the damn thing changes key with every chord but it still manages to sound completely natural.

So I (foolishly) decided to stick to that sort of mantra, and ended creating a chord progression I was quite happy with, and ended up carrying through to the rest of the song. Much like Afternoon Forecast, it was an experiment in efficiency, but unique to this one is an almost-entirely-downwards arc that the song follows from start to end. Starting with quite a bit, and taking more and more away as the song goes on, almost as if the player themselves were calming down after a long day of racing.

It was actually after I showed this track to my boyfriend @petrolpeople that I came up with the title for the album. He jokingly called it "The Soundtrack to Gran Turismo 64", and after that I couldn't get the idea outta my head. I spent a little while formulating various names that sounded cheekily similar, but not quite the same that would evoke the vibe of a small Japanese developer making a Gran Turismo competitor. After a while I landed on Circuit Tourers Championship 64, and the name stuck

08 - Carbon Fibre Cottage - Garage

This one is my personal favourite, This is the second to last fully original tune I composed for this album, and thus could be the culmination of the last year's worth of practice both in terms of conceptualisation and composition I've been doing over the course of the album's creation.

This one doesn't really draw from any place in particular, at least I can't remember if it does. As I write this paragraph while listening to it, it just makes me think of everything else in the album. Which is apt, considering I had originally slated this as a credits theme, but decided that it fit the vibe of a woodland racetrack once I'd turned up the tempo.

I actually came to hate this track when I finished everything up to the first couple sections, but I took a break from it, came back to it, and the rest was a complete blur in the best possible way. I'd spent maybe no less than two hours or so on the second half of the track, and it felt like 2 seconds. I'm really really happy with this one :)

07 - Apex Evergreen - Theme of Emerald Woodtrail

I'd actually intended this for another project entirely. I was considering making a sequel to the Pantheon EP with brand new tracks made in that style, at least emulating it as close as I could with all the synths I can use in Renoise. Which yeah, this is the only track in this album that was made with Renoise. Specifically, this one was riffing on a track from Pantheon that went unreleased. It was going to be something of a joke song that would play in elevators in dangerous places, like dungeons.

The joke was that the dungeons would be really threatening and ominous, then the elevator, still playing elevator music from days gone by, would cut through the atmosphere in a humourous way. It's kinda a lame joke in retrospect. But I nevertheless thought it'd be a good idea to resurrect that idea, go figure, taking cues from the Goldeneye 64 elevator themes.

The details of all that aside, I'm really happy with this one too, almost as much as I am with Apex Evergreen, purely do to do the fact that writing this was very much just a complete blur, I don't remember much that happened, and that's usually a good sign, that I'm in my absolute element just letting music happen, it's such an awesome feeling.

This track was originally half the length with no repeating "verse, chorus, verse, chorus" structure, but after showed this to a friend of mine, who suggested making that intro a credits theme, I lengthened it out, adding some extra bits to make it flow a bit better as a credits theme. After some final tweaks to certain melodies made just earlier this afternoon in fact, this final final version was made! Hallelujah!!!!!!!

09 - The Championship Title - Career Ending

This one was also very much Gran Turismo (take a shot) inspired, mainly drawing cues from the GT3 (take a shot) dealer and garage themes, as well as the more mellow GT Mode themes in GT4 (take a shot). I'd imagine the showroom being rather glamorous, with the cars sitting on a giant lazy susan made out of bright lights surrounded by lots of calm red walls and sparkly metal frames in the surroundings.

03 - Passion Ignite - Car Showroom

This was actually the first track I wrote for this. It was originally a much looser idea, I'd sort of imagined it would be on the Nintendo Wii, with that sorta era presentation. But as more and more tracks were made, the more I got an N64/PS1/Saturn vibe.

I don't have much to say about this one in terms of composition tbh, it's just nice and I like it :)

02 - Fresh Waters - Career Mode

Hey ho there, I make the chippy and non-chippy bois!!/??1/

Avi: @KayllaCat on Twitter

Chippy Toolz:
Furnace
FamiTracker 0.4.6
FastTracker II (FT2 Clone)
Milkytracker
OctaMED Sound Studio 1.03c (OctaMED V7)
OctaMED V4

Non-chippy toolz:
FL Studio 21
Renoise

New tracks tagged #canvas