on still wings + album progress
An egret descends on still wings.
I just dropped On Still Wings, the final new track on I Warned You About Stairs. I’ve wanted to make a track like this for a while. Tough, angry, villainous, and a little ominous. I really like how it turned out, especially considering that I jumped into recording the instrumental parts with only a half-baked idea of how I wanted the tune to go, and composed and arranged most of it as I went along 😵. That’s not actually a good idea, by the way. You should have your shit planned out before you get to recording. Don’t do what I did 😵😵😵
I’d wanted to make a tune like this for a while, and I was 90% there, but what really gave me that last 10% of motivation and pushed me over the edge was when a friend introduced me to an album called “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven” by a group called Godspeed You! Black Emperor. There’s only 4 tracks on it, but the tracks are long, dark, atmospheric, moody, and god they sound cool. I was especially blown away by the buildup to around 16:00 on track #2, titled “Static.” The sense of urgency, the gradual acceleration, the harsh timbres of the instruments… all colliding and crashing, washing over me like waves against a cliffside. Shit blew my mind. After hearing that album I thought “alright, it’s go time” and got down to business.
The title of this track, “On Still Wings,” comes from a poem by Taiwanese poet Hu Yun-Shang, who went by the pseudonym Lin Ling. It’s a beautiful poem. Taken altogether, it made me feel quite melancholy, and the imagery of the bird descending on still wings and the two people crossing paths and climbing to distant summits stuck with me. And made me feel wistful and made me long for the past. But that wasn’t all. For some reason I can’t quite put a finger on, the imagery of the bird descending on still wings also gave me an ominous, sinking feeling. As though something was wrong. Like there was danger close by. Maybe it reminded me of how a vulture might quietly circle its dying prey, or how a hawk might swoop in for the kill. I thought of that feeling when deciding on a name for this track. And it fits quite beautifully.
I’ve included a translation of it by Kenneth Rexroth and Chung Ling below, from “The Penguin Book of Women Poets.”
Footpaths Cross in the Rice Field
You are horizontal.
I am vertical.
We divide the heavenly bodies
And the four directions between us.
We come from the place of becoming,
Pass by here,
And encounter each other
In this final meeting
In a flooded rice field.
An egret descends on still wings.
We quietly chat about the weather,
And say, ‘I’ll see you again.’
Quietly make an appointment,
Climb to far apart hillsides,
And look back from the summits.
A pure white feather floats down.
As the feather floats down,
Oh, at that moment
We both hope that happiness
May also be like a white bird,
Quietly descending
We hope—
Even though birds
Are creatures with wings.
the tune and the album and other stuff too
To get that ominous, villainous tone, I tuned my guitar’s lowest string down to Eb. That actually served two purposes.
- First, a lower note results in a thicker, meaner guitar tone, especially when playing power chords. That Eb power chord is sickeningly, disgustingly powerful when it comes through the rhythm pickup. I love it.
- And second, tuning the bottom string down a half step allows me to play power chords very comfortably without needing to use my left index finger! Super helpful, considering I recorded most of the rhythm guitar parts while a third of my fingertip was detached from my body.
So. About my finger injury. I already talked about it in the description of the video and the video itself, but in case you missed all of that somehow: I sliced off part of my left index finger in late July when I was cooking. The wound has been healing steadily, but it delayed my recording process for this tune a little bit, and it still kinda hurts when I play guitar using my left index finger. I hope the pain goes away at some point. It’s really bothersome. Especially because I’m a musician! The use of my left index finger is crucial for like every instrument I play!
This is the last of the original tunes that’ll wind up on the album. From here on out, the only thing left for me to do is remix and remaster my old tracks and assemble the album. I’ve never done something like this, and I’m learning everything as I go along. I hope it turns out alright.
I plan for this to be the last Homestuck tune I make for a while, because I've been pumping out Homestuck related stuff every single 4/13, 6/12, and 10/25 for like, 7 years straight, and I would like to wholeheartedly dedicate my time and effort to some other stuff that I've put on the back burner for a while.
But fear not! Homestuck is special to me, Homestuck music especially, being one of the primary motivating factors behind my decision to start recording my own music as a teenager all those years ago. The melodies and instrumentation and styles of Homestuck composers have become a permanent part of my musical vocabulary. Homestuck has inspired me endlessly. It’ll always be a part of whatever I do! Nothing can change that.
I’m pretty certain I’ll return to making more Homestuck music sooner rather than later. I’m just tryna take a short break from that for a while so I can compose other kinds of music and release other kinds of videos.