2015

Wed, Jan 7

<21:51 EEST> A new song for a new year. This is probably my longest-running musical project ever, as it's been in the works since 2007. I've had several stabs at it over the years, but only now did it find its right form.

The idea started from playing around with a simple octave arpeggiator in my Korg Triton Le, which is kind of hypnotic as such, but it gets interesting with chords and syncopated rhythms. It was a fun n' happy electro experiment, until I tried a more adventurous chord progression with the same bleeping sound. In that instant my mind's I was seeing stars, and I knew I was on to something.

I think the all-consuming bleepage was a little too much in the end, so the soundscape is now much mellower, possibly even a little dark. I think this also suits the prog fantasy sections much better. Nevertheless, there are a few transitional passages where the old idea comes together for a starry winter while, especially in the final grand scene.

On a whole, this is probably not quite as epic as something like Kevätolo, but I still feel it has a story to tell — perhaps that of a boy with too much time and electronics, who grows up to have feelings and a deeper sense of things in the world.

About the name, the original idea was a kind of tribute to acts like Chemical Brothers and Orbital (which is a fun combo in itself, if you know any chemistry). The working name, especially with the 8.3 filename limitation in the Korg, was usually Chemi-something, and it kind of stuck — it doesn't stand for anything in particular. Although it happens to be German for chemistry, I think the original references are now pretty far-fetched in terms of musical style, and there's not even much psychedelia left for the applied chemists out there. So forget about the name and just enjoy the ride.