Rather than give Spotify the spotlight with their Wrapped nonsense, I figure I'd take the time today to reflect on the past year of music and composition, and also talk about plans for the next year!
I kicked off the year by finally releasing Gacha! This track was originally meant to accompany an animated short, but unfortunately the artist never got to finish the short due to physical injuries 😔 I got permission to release the track though, and it's surprisingly popular enough in Amazon Music?
I also got a chance to participate with @gamegrooves' Summer of 64 event, and I crossed a big dream ticket item off of my composition list - do a cover of a song from Super Smash Bros. 64! I leaned in a lot into my funk obsession from this past summer, and I think the track came out really well.
My big, big composition project also landed this year - the soundtrack to Civic Story! I sincerely hope the game will catch on as time goes on - the game tackles topics and issues that a lot of games will skirt around just because they're hard to talk about, and this game I think does an admirable job of trying to demystify it all. It's not perfect, but it tries! (I also think it's some of the most bangin' music I've written for a game)
I also fell into a big ol' creative rut sometime this year, and sought to dig myself out of it by releasing music under a pseudonym. I found a cheap, rejected keyboard at my local Value Village, and decided to make an improvised, un-quantized track out of each drum preset. It turned out to be a bit of a bop!
So... what's next?
I have a few GameGrooves projects just waiting to see the light of day for next year, as well as a few collaborative projects that are also waiting to be released. In the mean time though, I'm currently working on a personal composition project for piano trio!
The last time I wrote music and recorded it was for A Day to Remember, and that was over five years ago. I figure it's high time for me to flex my composition muscles and try out a new challenge! I'll be recording some original material, as well as some stuff from my uni years - surprisingly enough, some of that stuff have stood the test of time. I'm also excited to do a piano trio arrangement of one of my own video game tracks~ I'll announce more as it gets closer!
In the mean time, I'm going to enjoy today, listen to music on the bangin' new set of studio headphones my spouse got me, and have some cake
PS
If you wanna help in wishing me a happy birthday, my entire Bandcamp catalogue is bundled at 50% off~
