Eidolon's Other Commentary Whatsits
Alrighty, first off is Time Paradox. This was the first piece I submitted for an album once I got on the team. Basically what happened was: I am visiting somewhere in Chicago with only my phone's connection to the internet, check the MSPA forums and find a message notification waiting for me. Radiation congratulates me on getting on the team. After some moments of sputtering disbelief, I read on. He says if I want to get started on something, the Squiddles was being finished up and the Felt was on the table. So, for the next couple hours I was invigorated, consumed wholly during the car ride and time in the hotel before I finally fell asleep with working on a track for the Felt. Time Paradox was made. Originally, I made it imagining the recruitment of the Felt, picturing Doc Scratch warping across time and space, assembling the green goons from who knows where, and then witnessing the construction of the Felt manor. It's a fun track, more energetic than a lot of things I had worked on and definitely influenced by Radiation's style. The last two sections are still some of my favorite phrases that I've written.
Clockwork Reversal was my second contribution to the Felt. I love the melody of Endless Climb. I loved the music box-esque remixes on Volume 5 even more. Before I got on the team, I had written Clockwork Apocalypse, an orchestrated version of Clockwork Melody. After realizing Audacity could reverse music, I started experimenting. Since the Endless Climb melody was so memorable and it had served as good sort of interlude tracks on Volume 5, I decided to try to make something in a similar vein. Oddly enough, I think the reversed version of the Clockwork Reversal sounds even better than both Clockwork Reversal and Clockwork Apocalypse.
Then there's my contribution to Volume 7. Havoc to be Wrought was spawned from an idea for a short story I had in my mind about a man climbing the old bell tower of an abandoned church investigating strange sounds that had plagued a small town, only to be forced into a confrontation with the "King of Owls" once he reaches the top, and ending with the KoO cutting the bell rope that the man clung to and screeching in the night. Things changed though. Once I had actually started writing and refining it, I decided to change its message, from a mad owl thing to the mysterious demon in the troll's session which had been recently mentioned in the comic (I wrote this sometime in Fall 2010). Also, yes, that is why there is distorted owl screeches at the end, although they were more meant to evoke the horrorterrors crying out in pain than owls by the time it was finished. Contains some very powerful organ and some great chord progressions, but also some structural choices I am not completely proud of, which remained in the piece until its release months and months later because the original Finale file crashed on me before I had a chance to save it. So, rather than attempt reconstructing it, I went with what I had, and it stuck.