James And The Raving Lunatics - Room

I submitted this to Megs, but I thought it deserves a post of its own. Im currently working on a harp suite inspired by the character Poplar from the game Bonely Heart's Club. My goal is to write five movements and as I compose this piece, I document everything into a document from my sources, to drabbles about what im doing. Below is me nerding out on what the first movement is about and my compositional ideas behind it. If you were curious feel free to read it.

Thank you to @scrambledmeggys and everyone involved in @bonelyheartsclub for inspiring me to write this piece.

A Berceuse is a style of music characterized by simplistic textures, static left hand patterns, and a 6/8 time signature. It is often similar to a lullaby or a cradle song. Berceuses are intended to be soothing and reflective and it's the latter that I focused on when it comes to the story. I wanted it to be a bittersweet reflection on Poplar's past home (The Underground in the Horrortale canon), and a thought into their future home on the surface. While they do miss Snowdin due to spending most of their life there, they are also happy to move forward and no longer be stuck in a bad place.

How did I achieve this composition-wise?

At the time of writing this movement I was reading Vincent Persichetti's book "Twentieth Century Harmony" and one chapter of the book specifically went into modes and key signatures. To simplify it, the more flats there are in a mode and/or key signature, the "darker" the tone is, and the more sharps means the "brighter". the tone is. To try and combine both elements, I decided to pick a "dark" key signature and mesh it with a "bright" mode. The resulting combination was Bb Lydian. In major key signatures, Bb is on the darker end while not the darkest. Out of the seven diatonic modes, Lydian is the brightest (If you aren't familiar with modes, Bb Lydian is essentially a Bb major scale but the Eb is pushed up to E Natural). Towards the end of the piece I shifted it to F Ionian (it's just a fancy term for F Major). It goes one step brighter in terms of key signatures and one step darker in the terms of modes (F Major is one less flat and Ionian is the second brightest mode behind Lydian). I like to think of this portion as the phase where it focuses on a "bright future" on the surface.

James and the Raving Lunatics - Circuit Crawl

Released March 14, 2024

In March of 2024, I spent a period practicing various different styles for electronic music to further develop skills in techniques, mastering, and soundscape design. "Circuit Crawl" went in the direction of techno music in a darker aesthetic to contrast the lighter toned song I made prior "Inside the Ice Storm". Bitcrushing was the main idea for the soundscape to give a bit of a video game vibe to it, almost reminiscent to a fighting game.

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Artwork featured in video: Stock Photo

Hello everyone!

I apologize for the super long delay. My laptop broke and I had to get it replaced plus the video file was too large to post here, but after long last its finally time to post it!

On April 3, 2025, Suite for Poplar received its world premiere at Project 21's April Concert. I am so excited for this piece to finally be heard live. As always I want to thank @bonelyheartsclub for being the driving inspiration behind this project

I also wish to thank @scrambledmeggys for inspiration as well. I learned not to long ago that she had officially departed from the project. While it breaks my heart to see her go, I figured this would be the perfect way to provide a final goodbye.

Thank you all for your continued support <3

Harpist: Emily Duncan

I. Berceuse for a Distant Memory

II. Pastorale for Ash’s Garden

III. Gavotte for a Weak Set of Legs

IV. Lied Ohne Worte

V. Burlesque for a Funny Bone

This song was actually made back in 2021 and was associated with a different project altogether that never really saw the light of day. Originally called "Blue Balloon", this track was sort of based on the Weirdcore/Dreamcore aesthetic. I used it to explore electronic writing and trying to hybrid the use of sample loops and original MIDI writing.

Images used were 3D models and renders I created when I was 17.

Premiered March 6, 2025

Here it is! The third movement of my harp suite dedicated to the character Poplar from Bonely Hearts Club! I wanted to create a movement a bit more technical as opposed to the two lyrical movements before, but nothing too difficult to where it falls out of place with the rest of the suite.

As always, if you wish to learn more about the movement, be sure to read below, and thank you to @bonelyheartsclub and @scrambledmeggys for the inspiration for the piece

(Also credit for the artwork belongs to Meg as well)

A Gavotte is a medium paced French dance that was poplularized in the 18th century. Its distinct characteristic is that it starts on the third beat of a 4/4 bar, creating a "hopping quality", and typically follows a simple binary form (Two contrasting sections. A and B with a return to A). Most gavottes you find in music literature are for piano, so I thought it would be a fun idea to write one for harp.

Poplar is said to have a love for dancing, though his preference is stated to be “boogie style from the 80s and 90s”. In order to combine these two components that are essentially opposites, I decided to create a story that helped bridge the gap. Poplar doesn’t have the best legs and often uses a cane to help support him. When he was undergoing physical therapy, he would use dancing as an exercise though he couldn’t jump straight into the fast upbeat songs. As a result, he went for songs that were more Moderato/Allegretto in tempo to help ease him in, and gavottes were one of those things that helped him move. 

"Merlot" is a House track I made that sort of belongs in the same universe as "Boulevardier"; a track that pays homage to the original house/deep house movements in Chicago and New York in the 1980s. To put a modern twist on it, I decided to experiment a little bit by alternating between swing and straight eighth notes as well as trying out a 3/4 section as well.

Premiered March 6, 2025

James and the Raving Lunatics - Inside the Ice Storm

Released March 14, 2024

In March of 2024, I spent a period practicing various different styles for electronic music to further develop skills in techniques, mastering, and soundscape design. "Inside the Ice Storm" was a view into the world of Drum and Bass music and taking more of an organic soundscape featuring more acoustic instruments and experimenting with panning. The main inspiration came from the piano progression from the song "Crystallized" by Camellia, and was just further developed on when listening to it on loop.

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Artwork featured in video: "Dreamweaver" by scaryjesus

There's not much to describe about this track. I had created a chord progression and decided to make a house track out of it that is more mellow and laid back compared to other things I wrote. The title doesn't hold too much significance, I just decided to simply name it after one of my favorite actors who I sampled towards the end.

Premiered April 3, 2025

Hello! Sorry I've been a bit inactive, however I had made tremendous. amounts of progress on my harp suite, and now I am excited to present the second movement! Personally I absolutely fell in love with how it sounds and is probably my personal favorite movement. Remember that this is only a MIDI audio so the playback has limitations, however a live performance of the piece will be done around early April!!!

If you wish to learn more about the movement, feel free to read below. As always, thank you so much to @bonelyheartsclub and @scrambledmeggys for being the main inspirations behind this piece.

Also... @davetasticdave?! Hello?! We're mutuals now?! Im literally a huge fan of your voice work for the series! It mean a lot that you're supporting what I do ❤️

The second movement took heavy inspirations from pastorales, which are musical works that are intended to evoke peaceful feelings and imagery of nature and rural life. This was a perfect concept to dive into Poplar's close relationship with his brother Ash and his love for gardening. In this movement, I imagine a soft and intimate soundscape more static than the fluid first movement.

The inspiration comes from the first movement of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in G Major (D.894), which in fact, the opening chord is replicated in this piece to start the soundscape. The rest of the inspiration behind the compositional techniques I used came from the era of Impressionism in the early 1900's (Think composers like Debussy, Ravel, and Satie).

One major compositional technique used is the use of parallelism. Parallelism is the movement of chords in the same direction while maintaining the same intervallic relationship between each note. This can be heard a few times such as in 0:57. Parallelism can also be used in single intervals such as in 0:29 with the upper notes.

Another common compositional technique used in impressionism is the use of quartal and quintal harmonies. This piece only uses quartal harmonies, which is the concept of building chords/harmonic structures from intervals of fourths (perfect, augmented, or diminished) as opposed to the traditional chord based on intervals of thirds. This creates an ambiguous tone that can be used to add a different texture into the piece. 0:57 also demonstrates those quartal harmonies.

James and the Raving Lunatics - New Rave Strobe Fest

Released on January 23, 2025

"New Rave Strobe Fest" is the other of the two Acid house tracks I made to kick off 2025. It has a much more contemporary feel to it and a lot heavier in texture, taking some influences from Trance and having a bit more of an overall futuristic/psychedelic feel. Like "Room", I also wanted to combine drum machines in this track, this time combining the 707 with the 909. The only goal here was to create a fun dance track to just jump around and let loose to.

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