FALLEN: A Retrospective (part 1)
It’s been about a week and a half since FALLEN: An Undertale Tribute was released. It was one hell of a project–having never directed an album before, a 97-track release honoring Undertale was a pretty heavy first attempt.
One of the aspects of my artistic vision was that I wanted this to be a seven-disc album. However, to organize the album this way on the platforms we released it on (iTunes, Spotify, etc) would have resulted in pretty prohibitive pricing. Therefore, we decided to distribute the album as a large, “single-disc” release so we could price it as affordably as we wanted, and ensure that more hands had the opportunity to obtain and enjoy the album.
What I wanted the listener’s experience to be was a journey through the underground, through the eyes of each of the fallen humans of Undertale lore. Each disc represents one of those humans: Patience, Bravery, Integrity, Perseverance, Kindness, Justice, and Determination. I organized the tracks roughly in the order that you would experience them in the game (with some exceptions here and there), as if to imagine how each one of them would have interpreted the regions, characters, and experiences of the Undertale story, expressed through music.
Now that I’ve had some time to breath (and wrap up all of the other projects I was putting off while working on FALLEN!), I’d like to go through each one of these discs and talk a little bit about why I organized them the way I did. Let’s start with Patience!
(art by @recklessflailing)
Track 1: Jason Lux, Saskia Kusrahadianti - Home
How do you begin a disc? No, let me rephrase that–how do you begin a 97-track album when the first track of the first disc is being themed around the concept of “patience?” Admittedly, I was pulling my hair out over this a little bit. Normally, when organizing an album, I would pick something high energy and exciting to get the listener pumped. However, that made no sense for Patience, who was the first human we are (subtly) introduced to in Undertale. Furthermore, I wanted it to be either the main theme of Undertale, or a piece you hear early in the game! When I tried Jason and Saskia’s track, it fit like a glove. Their rendition of Home is smooth, chill, and comforting, but with crystal-clear production values and a solid groove. It brings me back to the golden age of the 90′s pop ballad, which I was unashamedly a big fan of. On top of that, Home is mostly based on the main theme of Undertale (Once Upon a Time) anyway, so it worked well as an overture piece as well. I’m very thankful for this track, because I don’t know how I would have started this album without it!
Track 2: Sean Schafianski - Detritus (Ruins)
Sean “sshafi1″ Schafianski is a Materia Collective veteran, if there is such thing, given that the Materia Collective is only about a year and a half old. Sean is well known on YouTube for remastering video game music, and has always been generous with his mixing and mastering skills to other members of the community. Sean’s primary contribution to this album was an interesting combination of classical minimalism and rock, and was also the only person to explicitly arrange Ruins for this album. I also got to play drum set and marimba on this track! I decided to put this track on Patience because of the repetitive nature of the minimalist influences on this arrangement. I consider minimalism as a style to be a patient endeavor–it takes patience from the composer’s perspective when working with such little material, but also from the performer and the listener as well.
Track 3: Matthew S. Harrison - Ghosts n’ Dummies
Matt Harrison is another Materia Collective “veteran” who submitted 3 whole arrangements to this album! Matt specializes in electronic music and has been a wonderful asset to the community since joining us for the original “Materia” album. I thought his Ghosts n’ Dummies would be a great addition to Patience because I wanted to ensure there was some variety of genre on this disc, but thought the energy of this track was still compatible with the idea of “patience”. After all, this is the music you hear when fighting Napstablook. He was pretending to be sleeping that whole time–that takes some patience!
(art by @recklessflailing)
Track 4: Faseeh - The Skeleton that is Sans
I believe FALLEN was Faseeh’s first Materia Collective project, and joined us when wunderkind Charles Ritz had to unfortunately step down from arranging sans. for us. Charles recommended Faseeh directly, and I couldn’t be happier to have him on board (though, having Charles on board would have been great too. Both of them next time, please!). This track is a little more upbeat than the others, but fits because it still has a relatively slow groove. I also consider Sans to be a very patient character. Perhaps the most patient? Or perhaps I’m confusing patience for laziness ;)
Track 5: Kirill Polyanskiy - Waterfall
Kirill was a last minute addition to the album–he’s a wonderful arranger, but was having trouble finding musicians to work with and we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to include him! But Sean Schafianski stepped up to the plate and worked with Kirill to help him realize his arrangements using his apt production skills. Kirill ended up being able to contribute two arrangements to this album. I placed Waterfall here because his orchestral style exudes a certain placidity that I found appropriate for Patience. Honestly, both of his tracks could have worked on this disc, but I wanted to space them out a little bit. One thing I realized as I programmed this album is that there is no one right answer when organizing each discs. There are many “right” answers–this is just what I chose!
Track 6: Bonnie Bogovich - Inner Monologue of a Bird Waiting on the Edge
Seriously–that bird has been waiting there forever. If there had to be one character in Undertale that embodies patience, I think I would probably pick that poor bird. Sorry, Sans. And Napstablook.
Bonnie has been a part of the Materia Collective since the beginning as well, and has consistently ensured that there would be comedic contributions on every album since. She does not fail to disappoint on FALLEN! More on that later :).
Track 7: Leslie-Anne Snipes - Double Chill
It’s Napstablook’s family’s tradition. Eat a ghost sandwhich, lie down and feel like garbage. But really, who hasn’t done this? Last MAGFest, there was an entire panel devoted to it.
Leslie-Anne Snipes gave Chill a laid back, hip-hop groove that I knew was perfect for Patience. By this point, I admit that I was getting excited when I realized there would be an electronic track appropriate for patience. I really wanted to make sure that these discs were organized by essence, not genre. I got worried that Patience would get overrun by orchestral or acoustic arrangements, so tracks like this one were important to me in establishing the atmosphere of this disc.
Track 8: David Peacock - Another Medium / CORE
I have to be honest: I’ve been a fan of David Peacock’s for a while. I’ve had the opportunity to play for him a number of times, and each experience is better than the last. I got to play vibraphone on this arrangement–the part he wrote for me was actually pretty difficult, but also really beautiful. David’s Another Medium / CORE was one of the longer tracks on the album, and was also written in an minimalism-inspired style. For these reasons, I thought Patience was the right disc for it. David wrote a wonderful blog post of his own explaining his process writing this piece and his experience working with the musicians on the track.
(art by @recklessflailing)
Track 9: Jeremy Harris Jones - Uwa!! So Mettaton!
Jeremy teamed up with pianist Tom Miller on this super relaxing, atmospheric arrangement of the Uwa!! themes, mixed with a bit of For the Fans as well. This was an obvious pick for Patience–the warm, slowly undulating chords that swell into one-another, accompanied by Tom’s beautiful piano improvisation, put me in a nice, relaxed state that I really shouldn’t be driving during. It’s also one of the longer arrangements on the album, which is another reason for it’s Patience candidacy.
Track 10: Laura Platt - dogsong musak
Let’s be real here: being in an elevator takes patience. You have to wait for it to get to your floor!
More on Laura Platt later. Also, I guess I should mention that I placed this one where in the soundtrack you would normally hear Long Elevator. ;)
Track 11: Doug Perry - Undertale Variations
Oh hey, it’s me! This is my “theme and variations” style marimba arrangement of Undertale. I wrote this piece as part of my continued interest in expanding the percussion repertoire while also writing music that the younger generation would find attractive and relevant to their interests. I also wrote it because I really love Undertale. In this arrangement, I tried to see how many different lines I could play from the original tune at the same time, and try varying different parameters of the composition while doing so. I do hope to have sheet music for it at some point!
Honestly, placing this arrangement on the Patience disc was almost entirely a gut decision for me at first. However, I think it fits. I like the way Sam “Slambob” Bobinski put it: “it takes patience to learn a marimba piece, right?”
Track 12: Laura Platt - The Last Soul
Laura “Pl511″ Platt had originally proposed a different track for this project, but ended up changing her mind to adapt her ASGORE arrangement for FALLEN instead. She originally wrote this track for her own Undertale album, Fragments of a Heart (which I also played on!). However, for FALLEN, she replaced some of her digital instrumental samples with live players: Kristin “Field of Reeds” Naigus on Oboe, Tera “TeraCMusic” Catallo on violin, and Lauren “Laurentheflute” Liebowitz on flute. The live players added a lot of depth to an already emotionally heavy interpretation of ASGORE. Most arrangers don’t think to work with Asgore’s theme in such a peaceful, contemplative way–it was a natural pick for Patience.
Wowie, that was a doozy! Admittedly, that took a lot longer than I expected. But if you enjoyed this, please let me know! That will give me more incentive to keep writing ;). Disc 2: Bravery is next!
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