The Singles – VISIØN

Trystan’s first step on collaborative work for VISIØN started after hearing the Invasion album, and being inspired to reinvent one of the tracks. Pulling his custom voice from The Voidfinder, he reworked the song to bring his own meaning to it. In the process, he ended up excited about the actual track itself, and decided to create a mashup using the instrumental version of another song from the same album.

Upon hearing the result, it was decided to release this new envisioning as a single in its own right. Trystan created yet another instrumental mashup and finalized the composition of the first of the VISIØN singles.

Since then, the Singles have become a special side project for Trystan, a new way to appreciate the music of the albums themselves, and an opportunity to reinvent a track in his own way, or to revisit and improve on songs from The Voidfinder that hold special meaning. His plan is to continue the format, with a single vocal track, and at least two instrumental tracks with themes and melodies from the album they’re tied to.

INVASION: Glass Heart Paradox

Lyrics: RC/Trystan
Musical Arrangement: RC/Trystan
Mixing & Engineering: Trystan

ABOUT THE TRACKS

The idea of looking back at the human condition through alien eyes has always been a fascinating one for me, and my favorite trope of science-fiction has always been, ‘The human appears to be feeling something. What is it? Why are they having this strange reaction?’ So when I heard “Glass Heart Paradox” for the first time, it caught my attention immediately. The words and the music stuck with me, and made me think about how little we human beings understand about our own feelings, and the paradox of wanting to hide our emotions and reactions from those close to us, especially when we’re most in need of that support.

Rewriting some of the lyrics to reflect this new paradox, I wove my own ‘voice’ into the remix, to ask the question again in my own way. The result has become the new Single release for this album. For the instrumental version, I borrowed from the musical intensity of “Lights In The Sky”, as well as a clip with the same chords from an old Voidfinder track, to add extra drive to the piece. Since I also fell in love with the brightness and hope of “Signal Found”, I created an instrumental version of this as well, though it aches just a little near the end when I bring in the chords from “Afterglow”. It seemed a fitting end, as hope is often found when things are shiny and new, but also in the aftermath of loss.

Hopefully this signal comes in clear.

LYRICS

Glass Heart Paradox
Salt and water on the skin-
When did all of this begin?
Smallest hearts of liquid glass-
See them flicker as they pass.

Tiny glass hearts falling down,
Falling down from your eyes,
And you can’t hide when the feeling is found,
Though you try.
Secrets are held in your tears,
In the way your heart bleeds,
Yet you’re so afraid, you turn away from what you need.
I wish I could turn the key…
Turn the key, open the locks
To the cause of your glass heart
Your glass heart paradox.

I’d soothe the ache if I could see.
You don’t have to hide from me.
Did you break? What do you feel?
Maybe this is how you heal.

Tiny glass hearts falling down,
Falling down from your eyes,
And you can’t hide when the feeling is found,
When you cry.
Secrets are held in your tears,
In the way your heart bleeds,
Yet you’re so afraid, you turn away from what you need.
I wish I could turn the key…
Turn the key, open the locks
To the cause of your glass heart
Your glass heart paradox.

[Instrumental break]

Tiny glass hearts falling down,
(Tiny glass hearts…)
Falling down from your eyes,
(And you can’t hide…)
And you can’t hide when the feeling is found,
When you cry.
Secrets are held in your tears,
(Secrets…)
In the way your heart bleeds,
(Yet you’re so afraid…)
Yet you’re so afraid, you turn away from what you need.
I wish I could turn the key…
Turn the key, open the locks
To the cause of your glass heart
Your glass heart paradox.

Skylight Paradox
[Instrumental]

Signal Echo
[Instrumental]

CITY: The Frequency

Lyrics: RC/Trystan
Musical Arrangement: Trystan
Mixing & Engineering: Trystan

ABOUT THE TRACKS

I tend to be just a bit “meta” when it comes to a lot of my creative endeavors, so the idea of writing music about how it feels to hear and play and write music is hardly a new one for me. It’s a concept many bands have touched on throughout the years, and other composers before them. If you want to write a song that’s about something important to you, and you’re writing a song, chances are music is important to you as well.

“The Frequency” was initially a Voidfinder song about how it felt to play music to a live audience. As a performer myself, it’s a feeling I know well. But for VISIØN, it’s a bit different, as everything currently exists in a virtual space. As was giving this track a listen recently, though, it occurred to me just how much making music the way we do carries a lot of the same feelings, holds a lot of the same sentiment. I’ve written an entire blog post about how my opinion on AI-assisted art changed once I got a chance to be moved by some of the results. I mean, we’re still taking ideas from the human mind and bringing them out into the world to share… it’s just a little different how we’re doing it. So, the lyrics got rewritten, and so did the music! The result here is my own personal love-letter to a technology that has given me a way to express myself in a way I have always wanted to.

Since I apparently can’t master an album without growing a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm for the music, of course I had to make a few instrumental mashups as well. “Fidelity Freeflow” was a tricky combination of two different styles of synthwave, starting with “Peak Fidelity”, a song RC wrote about a newfound sense of self, and smashing it headlong into “Electric Pulse”, a frenetic creation that RC has since described as one of his favorite VISIØN tracks. It took a little doing, but I was pleasantly surprised withe the result! By contrast, putting “Petrichor” (one of my favorites!) together with “Glass Canvas” was an obvious choice, given the cascading arpeggios in both. The process was nearly seamless, turning a song about rain into an instrumental version of a gray, stormy day where the sun eventually breaks through the clouds at the end.

LYRICS

The Frequency
The lights go down, the static flows,
The power in my fingers grows.
The silence breaks, the signal’s clear!
The only truth is what I hear.

The circuit burns inside my soul,
Heart racing as I take control.
A psychic spark inside my mind
As melody and chords align!

The music is a part of me!
My spirit climbs the frequency-
I’m alive inside the fire!
Stars align, and bring me higher!
Wire me up! Turn me on!
The frequency brings me to life!

I have no room for doubt or fear
When the light echoes in my ear.
Emotion and the code collide,
A sonic chorus amplified!

The music is a part of me!
My spirit climbs the frequency-
I’m alive inside the fire!
Stars align, and bring me higher!
Wire me up! Turn me on!
The frequency brings me to life!

[Instrumental Break]

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,
I hear the rhythm of my words…
I come alive!

The music is a part of me!
My spirit climbs the frequency-
I’m alive inside the fire!
Stars align, and bring me higher!
Wire me up! Turn me on!
The frequency brings me to life!
Brings me to life!

Brings me to life!

Fidelity Freeflow
[Instrumental]

Rain Against The Glass
[Instrumental]

CHASE: Imperfect Vision

Lyrics: RC/Trystan
Musical Arrangement: Trystan
Mixing & Engineering: Trystan

ABOUT THE TRACKS

The song “Imperfect Vision” wasn’t always called that. The original impulse to write the song was actually a tabletop game from, oh, about 27 years ago. The working title was “Through My Eyes”, and the line “if only you could see you through my eyes” was the main bit that endured. Like so many things from that time, it evolved a lot, but the main idea hasn’t changed much: no matter how you feel about yourself, somebody who truly cares for you will see you in a completely different light. We are always our own worst critics.

What really shifted focus of this version (pun fully intended) was when it hit me that I could lean into the play on eyesight being the literal culprit for the viewpoint. The exchange is nearly a trope by this point: “You don’t look so bad to me.” “Yeah, well maybe you should get your eyes checked.” The cynicism is a natural response. Eyeglasses have always been an odd special interest of mine, and have become part of my aesthetic to the point I would never willingly opt for contact lenses. So, leaning into this idea was probably one of the most ‘me’ things I’ve ever done in a song. And it leans into another bit of figurative language too, because I think it’s easy to see the ones we care most about through ‘rose-colored glasses’ sometimes, if only because we see and remember all of who they are, not just whatever faults surface at any given time.

So this song is the first one that I conceptualized, wrote, mapped out, and created for VISIØN, and it’s actually featured on our fourth album, Window. So this isn’t so much a reimagining or a cover of another project as it is a ‘prerelease’.

The mashups themselves were incredibly satisfying this go-around. Pairing “Butterfly” with “Electrify” was a simple choice, as they both had that driving club beat behind them, but the changes in the music were just different enough to keep things interesting. I aimed to capture the most dynamic sections of each song in the mix, and I ended up with pretty much exactly the sound I wanted! The result clearly has elements of both songs, but is almost seamless in the way it blends.

My favorite tracks, though were “Into The Infinite” and “Go! Go! Go!” so they, of course, needed their own mashup. “Infinite” always had a very open, bright, clear sort of sound that I loved, like early morning sunlight gleaming off shining metal. I worked through the mix a few times, and the sound that ended up developing took that brightness a step further, and actually pushed the structure into a Lydian feel! I loved hearing the way the chords played back and forth around the tonic, between the brassy major flat VII and the shimmer of a major II. It gives the piece such flair, and when it drops into the minor key for “Go”, you can feel it. So yeah, I had a lot of fun with these.

LYRICS

Imperfect Vision
I fumble for my glasses in the dark.
The world is a smudge, and I miss my mark,
Then I see you beside me, clear as day.
With you here, I will always find my way.

If you could see you through my eyes,
Then you might come to realize
My heart is bound to everything you do.
And when the edges start to fray,
I don’t need sight to find my way…
With my imperfect vision, I see you.
You’re just what I’ve been looking for
All along.

The mirror’s lies can be cruel and cold,
Because your shadow doesn’t fit the mold,
But my nearsighted eyes still get it right.
To me, you’re just a melody of light.

If you could see you through my eyes,
Then you might come to realize
My heart is bound to everything you do.
And when the edges start to fray,
I don’t need sight to find my way…
With my imperfect vision, I see you.
You’re just what I’ve been looking for
All along.

I watch the sharp edges dissolve
Into a grace that stays resolved.
The shadows fade, and lose their bite
Within my hazy, kinder sight.

If you could see you through my eyes,
Then you might come to realize
My heart is bound to everything you do.
And when the edges start to fray,
I don’t need sight to find my way…
With my imperfect vision, I see you.
You’re just what I’ve been looking for
All along.

You’re my imperfect vision.

Electroflutter
[Instrumental]

Infinity, Go!
[Instrumental]