Well, I’ve done it again. Now that my second single is ready to go, I have to say, creating a single for an album like City was just as much fun as the first one I put together! “The Frequency” releases today, and it holds as much meaning for me, honestly, as “Glass Heart Paradox” did.
When RC was working on songs for The Voidfinder (somewhere after I’d come to enjoy the voice they had created for my character but before the arrival of Invasion) I started to take a basic interest in this AI-assisted music stuff. I mentioned that, since we had a voice for my character, somewhere along the line he’d probably write a song like “Spirit of Radio” by Rush, or “Lights” by Styx… an anthem to the music they were making together and how it felt to be part of that band. RC ended up creating a song for Kollin’s voice, writing a really neat set of lyrics that captured the feeling pretty well. After reading them, I was curious how the music would sound in that “synth-metal” style.
Once the song was fully scripted and mapped out, then generated a few times, we found one we liked, tweaked it a bit more, and eventually got the version currently released under The Voidfinder. It’s a good song, and it’s very in-line with that band. I couldn’t help feeling like it was a little off-center from what I had originally meant (the driving speed and minor key contributed a lot to this), but I still very much like it for what it is.
Once I had fully committed to VISIØN, though, I listened to it again, and some of the lyrics stood out to me in a way they hadn’t before. “In the silence of the void, I found my voice. In the empty quiet night, I made my choice. When everything is hollow, I have something I can follow.” It felt like it was resonating with how I was starting to feel about making music in a new way, and reconciling that struggle in my mind. So, after some consideration, I decided it was time to try reworking the song.
I rewrote the lyrics, keeping the ones that spoke to me, and changing the rest to reflect not how a fictional character felt about being onstage, but how I felt bringing the music of VISIØN to life, how it felt to hear my own curated voice singing back to me, how it felt to connect to a sound I had waited decades to hear. I shifted the tags to make it the classic VISIØN synthwave sound instead of metal, and coded my voice to sing just a little lower, slower, but with just as much passion.
It took a while for the right shift to happen, but I’m happy to say I was able to rework the song to reflect what I had been trying to say in the first place… only now with even more real meaning and feeling behind it! I’ve found The Frequency at last, and the music absolutely is a part of me.
When it came to the additional tracks, I knew what I wanted to play with almost from the start. “Peak Fidelity” was a very resonant song for me, as I have been trying over the last few years to be more and more open about who I am. More than that, the music itself was exciting and vibrant, and stood well on its own even without words. It seemed a good choice. I wasn’t sure at first how well it would pair with the more frenetic energy of “Electric Pulse”, but given that was the other really catchy track that stuck with me at first, I had to try. I must say I ended up happy with the result!
“Petrichor” was one of my favorite tracks, and holds a special place in my heart. I have always loved the rain, having come from a hot, dry, and dusty city, and the smell of it, the feel of it in the air, the relief it brings when the sky breaks, has always had meaning. “Petrichor” wasn’t the only song on City that had those beautiful cascading arpeggios that felt so much like falling rain, though. “Glass Canvas” was full of that, too… and I remembered the way the rain would hit the buildings downtown. It was always a nice image. The best part about mashing these up, though, is that it turns the gentle rainfall of “Petrichor” into a darkening storm as the music shifts to the minor key. The passing shower becomes a dark and rainy day, full of softer light and gray ambiance, that then brightens to that major key in the final moments, as if the sun finally breaks through the clouds. I can almost feel the rainbow forming at the end.
Now, that imagery has found a clear frequency to ride along on, and I hope these tracks match the exciting energy and vivid life of the rest of the City album. I certainly enjoyed creating it! As always, the Frequency endures… thanks for tuning in!