👻 Joyless Music, Samples, Vidya!

Overview

Like before, it leans into uncertainty, emotional drift, and trying to make sense of things after the fact. It's my first full length concept album, but slightly fragmented—like flipping through old dreams, half-finished thoughts, or memories I'm not sure are real. The idea was for it to be a kind of diary in that respect. A look back at the last 2 years or so and to record some significant things that had happened to me in audio form. That's the "empty lives part". Those who are familiar with my YouTube video game content know how I play games so I had the idea to format that idea into the perfect album to explore games along to. It's something I've always been looking for but could never find so I decided to just do it myself. It's a full length seamless mix of (technically) not ambient songs but ambient songs in the sense that they're not traditionally structured. They don't have a chorus, bridge, etc... So they just sit in the background and follow a sequence of evolving atmospheres and soundscapes to colour whatever game you happen to be playing.

I'm really proud of this. In those two ways I can confidently say that it's THE album for dead games and empty lives...

1. 112521

This was the date something important happened. The track was my way of freezing that feeling in time—like capturing an emotional snapshot. When I finished this I remember thinking it was cool how the sounds got so distorted and loud that the limiter is audibly working overtime to duck the piano and atmosphere, but I'm not so sure if I like that anymore. It's definitely, a unique sound... I'm not sure that anyone else has done that before lmao

2. life (in colour)

Most of the time things feel muted, but every once in a while, life suddenly turns vibrant and real. This song was written during one of those moments, where everything briefly felt bright and alive for the first time. It might not always last, but it felt important enough here to write down.

3. the bright stars on my ceiling

I had those glow-in-the-dark star stickers as a kid and I have really fond memories of just spacing out and staring at them. This one’s about trying to hold onto that kind of comfort through adulthood, even when everything else feels overwhelming. It’s nostalgic, but a little sad too. I tried to use bells and chimes in the melodic elements for a kind of "twinkle" sound, but it's generally childish sounding in how joyfuly it's arranged. Then there's the unmistakably darker elements like the pads and atmospheres that work against each other in a way that I feel reflects the purpose of the song. Ultimately it's very deliberately repetitive because I needed it to be something you could zone out listening to.

4. static agony

That feeling of being stuck in a moment that won't end. When your brain won’t stop moving, but it's pointless because you're powerless to stop or change anything. There's a lot of chaotic momentum in this track but I wanted it to start and stop constantly. Like it was trying to move but not really going anywhere.

5. bxtterscotch raindrops

This track and the three preceeding it are kind of a mini trilogy. They're about things from my childhood that have since occurred to me. A close family member used to eat angel delight on rainy days and it's about the feelings I have associated with that/them.

6. dead games and empty lives

This is the title track for the able. I essentially made this from the ground up for my gta3 video and to be something that I thought would work well with exploring that game's surreal empty streets and obscure little areas. It's dark, atmospheric, and haunting. A lot like the game. I limited myself to a handful of samples, some beeps and boops from old games, whale calls, a vocal shout from an old dnb track. And then just tried to change them as much as possible to create as much variation as possible in the space I had. It's trance like in that sense.

7. castles in my mind

Very simple premise. It’s about all the stuff I build up in my mind—expectations, fantasies, old conversations I replay, people I miss, versions of myself that maybe never existed. It’s not always sad, but it’s not exactly happy either. There's a world inside my mind that doesn't exist. The main lead in this track is an arpeggio that I called "sky climber", and it just goes up and down and up and down. Like reaching for something in the sky.

8. all of my dreams

Probably the happiest song here. One of my favourite things about making stuff is looking back on it as if it were a time capsule. I wrote this song to remind myself in the future that as far as my life goals and dreams are concerned, I have everything I've ever wanted.

9. imsorryisuck

I'm never confident in anything I do. The most i can hope for is to look back on this and think that I at least tried really hard to make something interesting. Don't get me wrong I hate how apologetic I am too, I'd love to be able to throw something like this out there and not feel like I'm wasting everyone's time. But that's not the case, so I threw an apology in here. Sorry for wasting your time. Sorry I suck.

Ironically I used this as an opertunity to sample something I've always wanted to. Link's scream from the opening of Majoras Mask. Needless to say it's very brave sampling a Nintendo property, so I'm not sorry for that at least.