Early Headlights...! (Patreon)

Hello Patrons. Today a quick post about two things! First, a sketch version of Headlights...

There's a lot of ways songwriting unfolds for me, but probably the most common is that I'll be experimenting with programming some synthesizer, and there will be a sudden transition from exploring sounds, to exploring the melodies those sounds invite naturally as a result of their unique qualities. Songs like Lights, Arana Sleeps, Lakes, and here, Headlights, are just a couple examples of this particular way I write.

In this case, I had recently picked up the MegaFM synthesizer by Twisted Electrons - basically a hardware control box for two Yamaha YM2612 chips - and I was exploring its potential for screeching and shrill FM tones. Certain sounds came about and I began noodling, and the structure of Headlights rose organically within about fifteen minutes. After that I made recordings and tossed it all together in Renoise - and that was pretty much it! All the sounds you hear in this sketch except for the drums were sampled from patches I was making on the MegaFM.

All this happened in September of 2020. The lyrics came a couple days later while ruminating on what the song's potential might best be guided toward, and that I felt very much was a dark and brooding mood rife with anxious vibes and a sense of stalking doom - due in no small part to the fact the story of Arana Sleeps was and continues to be at the front of my mind. As you can tell the original idea was to make it more lively and frantic, but because I was working on PROJECTIONS at the time, I had to set the song far away and it would be three years before I'd get around to being able to complete it. By that time much had happened and my feelings about the song became more mellow, and I am glad for where it ended up. I hope you enjoy it too!

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The second thing I want to mention here is that because I am working on some updates for PROJECTIONS (finally...) I hope to document some of that process here for you guys. I've been exploring game development in Unity for around five years now, which isn't a lot of time. But I hope that seeing the stuff I do to make things work might be interesting to you. In the coming weeks (Before December 1st) I will be posting whatever I can manage to get done and document before actually giving PROJECTIONS its first real updates / fixes since its release in 2021.

Finally, thank you once again for reading and for supporting my artistic endeavors with your payments as well as your interactions.