First things first, I should sum up what the album's concept is. Basically, the album is a concept album about government overreach and the idea of escapism (that first one is only kind of a joke, because it's ridiculous to have an EDM album about that topic, but the lyrics are pretty much about that). It's a dystopian future where everyone is being watched, and only a few people are actually dissatisfied with the situation. "The Forest" in question represents any one of a variety of things people use to escape their problems and just feel happy again. Mainly, it's music, but the great thing about the forest is that it's not really meant to be anything too specific, so you can apply whatever meaning is most relatable to you personally.
- This Is 1984 (Vocal Edit)
- This is the first track that I ever wrote lyrics to. However, on my first album, I did not include the vocals on the version of the track that was on the album. This version has the vocals that I recorded and was immediately unhappy with, but I figured out how to use a vocoder, and I fed the vocals through a vocoder and it sounds a thousand times better. The lyrics are basically about a dystopian society, where the citizens are being constantly watched and recorded via surveillance. The lyrics are about a lot of things, but the main ideas are government overreach, helicopter parenting, dictatorships, the feeling of hopelessness, and corruption. This is the first song I ever did vocals for, which is awesome, but I think the biggest artistic change for me was on the title track of this album.
- Genres: electronic rock, electro house, progressive house, trance/house, French house
- Utopia (Dystopia)
- This track is supposed to be a corporate, cold, unemotional, fake sounding elevator music track of the very distant future, where anything future bass or trap inspired is automatically used. The track is meant to suggest trustworthiness, and it is supposed to cover up all the issues with the society. As the track finishes, it switches to a noisy, dark, mechanical nightmare with alarms and beeping sounds, which is a glimpse into the reality of the society in the album. Despite it being intended to have a plastic and dead sound, it still manages to be one of my favorite tracks on the album, even though it's insanely sad when the meaning is revealed. If you listen closely, there are two parts in the song that use a sample of Anthony Frederickson doing whistle tone singing, the second time I sampled that video in a song. The first one was on "Danger".
- Genres: (Part One) future bass, trap, soul, ambient, lounge, MIDI, video game music (Part Two) glitch, noise, dark ambient, sound art
- Robots
- One of my personal favorites. This track is pretty much just a sonic representation of the various tactics the government is using to keep everyone in line, from security cameras to drones. The track originally was written for and included in my robotics team's 2017 Chairman's Award video (team: Beak Squad 4028). I added a little bit more to the song and it was the first track that got completed for the album, long before I made the album as conceptual as it is.
- Genres: electro house, complextro, glitch house, progressive house
- Danger
- Here, we have the official record for the most samples used in a track. The track is basically just a further look into the violent acts that the government is carrying out. There are two people sampled on the track. The one that is the most awesome is the siren noise, which is just taken from the whistle tone sample from Anthony. This track was actually the reason he approached me about singing on an actual track. One of my friends told him about the sample and then sent him a Soundcloud link (I had to send the Soundcloud link to my friend because I was thinking that Anthony would hate it, but he didn't, for some reason). About two minutes after the link was sent, I got a reply from my friend telling me Anthony wanted my number, and I consented to this demand, again getting ready to have a heated phone conversation and try to calm him down because I wasn't sure if he would react well to the track. About 10-20 seconds later, *BUZZ* and it's from Anthony, saying that he liked the track and wanted to sing on a track. I then wrote the lyrics to "The Forest" in under an hour, which is usually impossible for me to do anyways, much less in under an hour. The other sample is a sample of Austin Dickey of the band For the Likes of You and TheDickeyDinesShow on YouTube. I took a sample of him in an episode of "Dining with Dickey" and put it before the drop, after getting his permission over Twitter.
- Genres: trap, EDM, instrumental hip hop
- We Will Find You
- Okay, this is the part where the album starts to get weird for a little bit. This track is basically just the main characters evading capture and death from the government's abuse of power. This track is also the first track I ever wrote on my new Schecter Demon-7. Seven string guitar, sounds amazing, Seymour Duncan pickups, awesome. The guitar is in B standard tuning for the song. I wanted the track have some industrial rock riffing in it, and I came up with the opening/closing lead part out of nowhere while I was messing around with the guitar. The line "Cameras are shutting off" basically means that the surveillance cameras are going down, but it is being announced because the borders of the city close 15 minutes after the cameras go off. This becomes extremely important about 2 tracks later on the album.
- Genres: electronic rock, metal, industrial metal, groove metal, alternative metal, alt rock
- The Desert
- Yet another weird cut on the album. This is definitely one of my best tracks on the album, along with "Buzz Saw", "This Is 1984", "The Forest", "Utopia (Dystopia)", and "Robots". I love this song because it's a weird idea, but it's so effective. The song is about the characters dealing with isolation and planning their escape, as well as the process of traveling around to find other people to bring with them, and gathering supplies. The song itself is basically my nod to The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper", which has a track around halfway through the album called "Within You, Without You", which is a song mostly on sitar. The song started out as a sitar track with some extra flourishes using a dulcimer emulator. Then, I decided to increase the tempo from 100 to 128 bpm, and then added a house beat with a sidechain, and some pumping bass. Immediately, the track became more dynamic and mysterious. For some reason, the sound of a sitar mixed with EDM instruments is one of the most striking sounds I've ever done. The scale I'm using is (probably, not definitely, please check my work for me) C Phrygian.
- Genres: raga rock, Indian classical, classical crossover, Middle Eastern traditional, electro house, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, progressive house, outsider house, experimental house
- The Forest feat. Anthony Frederickson
- Finally, we have reached the most awesome track on the album by pretty much any standards. I have other favorites, but this one is the one track on the album that took the longest and was the most rewarding and fun song to hear completed. This song is the characters discovering and entering The Forest. The forest is an illegal rave, outside the boundaries of the city, that the characters escape to by taking advantage of the fact that the borders close 15 or so minutes after the cameras deactivate. They enter the illegal forest rave, and immediately wish they had done it years ago. Everyone has a "forest" that they use to deal with their problems, which could be any form of escapism or coping mechanism. Also, the second verse begins with 4 lines that are hinting at the rave being a sanctuary for racial minorities and the LGBTQ+ community, the latter of which is directly meaningful to both myself (as a bisexual), and to some of my close friends who are also part of that community, and the former of which is meaningful to a lot of other close friends and to a pretty large amount of people in the world. The forest is a safe place to just forget all the problems with life in a minority group, and just dance and feel accepted. I'm very proud of this song in pretty much every way, because it's the first time I've sung, unfiltered by a vocoder, on a track which I wrote myself, and actually released it. "This Is 1984" doesn't count, because I hid under a vocoder on that track.
- Genres: progressive house, electro house, uplifting trance/house, synthpop, electropop, pop music, dancepop, EDM, a slight deep house influence on the piano rhythm
- Buzz Saw
- Finally, the album is at the part where the rave goes into full swing. The DJ is playing some original tracks, and the first one that plays is a heavy trap/moombahcore banger. The rest of the album is pretty much like this, where the songs are just the progression of how the night goes in terms of music. The track is influenced by Dillon Francis' style of moombahcore and trap music. Also, the most amazing part is that the drop has another sample from Dining with Dickey's Austin Dickey, which he actually personally authorized and encouraged me to do over Twitter. "OFF THE FLOOR" is the drop callout, essentially meaning "JUMP THE F*!# UP!".
- Genres: moombahcore, trap, electro house, EDM
- U.F.O.
- This track is not my finest work. It's decent, but it's not my favorite on the album by any measure. The track is a satire of how popular deep house is and has been for quite some time. I'm not a huge deep house fan, in case that wasn't immediately obvious considering everything else I make. I mixed the style of deep house with my usual electro house sound. That takes the edge off the deep house a little bit for me.
- Genres: deep house, electro house, progressive house, future house
- Holland, 1945
- This is a cover of a Neutral Milk Hotel song. The original song is a lo-fi, indie, folk punk song with a really big horns section and fuzzy acoustic guitars. I changed the style of the track to be more punk than folk, and become more pop punk. The idea of this track is basically that the DJ is taking a break, and the main characters go up and use the available equipment to play a song of their own. They choose a song that's about Anne Frank, which is weird, but that's the charm of NMH.
- Genres: pop punk, Americana, lo-fi, folk punk, melodic hardcore, hard rock, alternative rock, indie rock
- Mashup
- The DJ has returned. He does what any good DJ does, and finishes with a mashup of a bunch of EDM tracks. It's basically a satire of mashups in DJ and EDM culture, where instead of making an original piece, they will just steal a bunch of popular tracks and edit them together to make filler. I chose to use a bunch of my own tracks, so I don't get sued. I used a bunch of snippets of my personal favorites in my discography, based on what fit together.
- Genres: electro house, big room house, progressive house, remix, mashup, complextro, glitch house, Dutch house, EDM
And that's all! Thanks for reading, and in closing, I enjoyed making this album, and I hope you all enjoy hearing it! Bye!
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