A Commentary on The Quiet Places Still Exist

Part 1: The Album

  General

  Hello! So, you've decided to read more into what I have to say on this album, and I thank you for that. I love sharing my work, but I really feel as though there are some things that simply won't be understood unless explained, and knowing them will enhance the listening experience just a little. This will be split up into a few parts.

  Part 1 (the one you're reading now) is about the album as a whole, and covers general information related to the making and consideration of the project. Part 2 is about each individual track and what I have to say on them. That's where you'll likely find the most context for some of the smaller, stranger details in the music and some info on how I made what I've made, but honestly, a lot of these songs were made more than a year ago, so I don't have a lot to say on a few. Part 3 will be on everything else. The album cover artwork, the ARG that was made to tease it's release, and some other tidbits that didn't really fit anywhere else.

  So, this album has been a work in progress for roughly two years now, since the release of Skyline and Flipside in 2022. In it's initial form, it was going to have more of a story to it than the other albums I have put out, following three characters. Each character would have their own songs with their own unique feels, all coming together to make a cohesive story. Unfortunately, I ended up scrapping that idea for a while, but the root idea always stuck around in some form. Red, Blue, and Green were the three characters. Their original appearances can be seen on the YouTube single uploads for Riftwalker, (rivers), and That Irregular Cloudscape respectively. Green was the only one to have an appearance change, but I'll get to that later.

  Overall, The Quiet Places Still Exist is what I think is one of my proudest works to date. It shows off all sides of my musical style in ways that I am very happy with, and the mixing and mastering actually has some thought behind it, making the listening experience much more pleasant. So, without further ado, here's some more info about the tracks on their own!


Part 2: The Songs

  1. Chrysalism

  Chrysalism as a word is what is known as a neologism, or a newly coined word or phrase. The definition is "the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm." I found this word first off of Pinterest, but then realized it comes from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which I then referenced in other song titles, like in Sonder for False Violets.

  The track Chrysalism is about what the name would suggest. I made it relatively quickly with the definition of the word in mind. The rain sound effect in it is one I think I pulled from YouTube, and the way the rolling thunder lines up with certain aspects of the song is just wonderful to me.

  Being the longest track on the album, Chrysalism was sorta always going to be the opener to the album. It just had the right feel to it and I could tell the moment I started really getting into it. Kind of a sidenote, but the sort of progression of the song form is made to roughly parallel that of the song Coelacanth by the band glass beach.


  2. Riftwalker

  Riftwalker is I'd say, the album's definitve acknowledgement of the Flipside album from 2022. Having very similar instrumentation, its higher energy and identical lead synth to the track, Flipside, mark it as a neat little reference for those who have listened to more of my music.

  As I said, a lot of these tracks are pretty old. The album as a whole was slowly made over the course of almost two years, and this was one of the earliest tracks, so I don't remember too much. What I do remember, though, is going back to this track in order to properly mix and master it (something which I did not do for either of my other albums, or any singles ,_,) and it was just a nightmare. For some reason, I decided to make the left and right ear switch octave in the low piano every 8 measures, and so I had to balance everything else around that. An issue of my own making, yes, but an issue nonetheless.


  3. Sonder for False Violets

  This track has a little bit of history to it, actually. It was made last year, under the title "Homesick," but ultimately was cut when I was deciding the "final tracklist." In quotes, because at the time, the album only had seven tracks. It was not the final tracklist.

  But yeah, this track was initially cut for a while because I just found it to be uninteresting. The album was already shaping up to have a lot of softer, ambient-ish tracks, and I didn't think this one made enough of an impact to be featured. That was until I was more recently going through the tracks to kinda re-detail a lot of things and make it more coherent, when I realized it had potential. So, I slapped some soft strings into the background and added in a reference to a later track in the album to act as a more interesting ending. And also renamed it.

  Like I said, the original title was "Homesick" but obviously that didn't stick. So, around the time I redid the track, I decided to give it a new name. At the time, the energy which I had redone the track with was a particular longing for the rain. I live in an area where rain is pretty uncommon, and for how much I adore the rain, it's a little unfortunate. I ultimately decided to name the track after this feeling.

  Sonder is another neologism from the same source as Chrysalism's title, and it is meant to describe "the knowing that everyone around you has their own lives as deep and complex as your own, yet you will never come to know all of them." It is a wistful feeling, and as such made good work to describe how I felt towards all the thunderclouds that passed just by me, never sharing a drop. The "false violets" part is less (more?) simple. I looked up alternative names for rain, and found dew. Of course, dew is not rain, but it was close enough for me. Then from there, I found out about dewdrop flowers. They're rather pretty, but I was more interested in their alternate name, "false violets." Something about it just clicks with the word "sonder" to me. And thus, Sonder for False Violets got it's name.

  Another interesting bit about this track, is that when I re-did it for this release, I replaced both the piano and mallet percussion with newer versions. I did though, leave the old ones in as a little detail during the second, slower half of the track. You can hear them fade in, panned to the sides at certain points.

  Somewhat related, but years ago, around the time I was making the Caramel Debut album, I had expressed interest in doing a colab with another beginner artist friend at the time. Unfortunately, I was unable to make anything satisfying with what I was given (which was not their fault, we just have rather different styles) but I still kept the plugin patches they gave me. Come two (three?) years later, and I'm looking for some high, ambient synth to put into Sonder for False Violets, and I stumble upon the ambient synth they gave me for the colab. I threw it into the track, and it fit pretty nicely, so that's in there too, though very faintly.


  4. Petrichor

  Despite what you may think, petrichor is a real word! It is the smell that lingers after rainfall. I am not entirely sure why I name this track the way I did, but I do feel as though the overall vibe of the word is fitting, if not the definition.

  Really, this track was me messing around with my new piano plugin. You may have noticed, but piano is kind of a huge part of my sound. Weirdly digial piano, too. But when I found this rather realistic-sounding piano, I instantly fell in love and started messing around with it. Not too long after, I made Petrichor. Of course, it got the same treatment as all the other tracks, in that it got re-done to an extent with more coherent detailing and mixing.

  Also by the way, the big build into that loud last bit really messes with the mastering of the track. Because of that, the rest of the track is relatively quiet compared to the rest of the album and it's a little unfortunate, but I think I found a good biddle ground.


  5. [Echoes Between]

  So, this track is one of the few that was made as the album was finishing up. The following track, Corner Left of Midnight, stands out so much from the rest of the album that I ultimately decided I needed some sort of transition to and from it in order to make it feel less disconnected. When I was looking through the dozens of unfinished songs (not an exaggeration) and found one called "Control," I knew it had potential. "Control" was the filename for this song, "In The Shaded Alleyway" was the wip name for it, and on a final pass through the track titles, [Echoes Between] is what I ultimately landed on.

  Now, this track is clearly divided into two parts, both an interpretation of the same melody. The first part is rather calm and even somewhat eerie, while the second part has more of a groove to it, while still holding a mysterious feel. There was actually a third part, though. It was intended to be a much longer, full-length super energetic track, but alas, was not good enough to make the cut. If you're interested as to how that might have sounded, you can check out the piano cover I did of Order from the ULTRAKILL video game soundtrack for a relatively similar compositional style.

  Also, about the brackets around the track name, it is another reference to the band glass beach. In their first album (and in the lead singer's previous solo work), every instrumental track is labeled in parentheses. Of course, every track on my album is instrumental, so I used brackets to represent something other than a track being instrumental. Now, the brackets represent transitional tracks, which are typically much shorter and made to serve as a bridge between larger tracks that may not fit so well together. I'll likely do this in future projects, too.

  Oh, and this track blends into the next one, Corner Left of Midnight.


  6. Corner Left of Midnight

  I do not remember how I made this track.

  Sure, I could open the project file and look at what I did, but really, I don't remember what was going through my head or how I made something so intricate sounding when I did it. This may be one of my favorite tracks on the album, but oh boy was it a struggle to fit into the tracklist. Like I said, Corner Left of Midnight does not fit at ALL with the rest of the album. The closest track would be Riftwalker, but even that still sounds fairly organic compared to this.

  I realize that as I'm writing this, I keep wanting to call the track 199, as that was its working title for the longest time. This is again, a glass beach reference, but really there was no meaning behind it. I name my project files random things all the time, and glass beach has a song called 200 and it is very very good. I realized the song I was making was good, but not as good, so it's one less. 199. Silly, I know, but I had to name the file to save it and that's what I came up with.


  7. [Sepia]

  So many glass beach references. I don't know if I've explicitly said, but they're a very very good band and you should definitely check them out. In this track, both the title and ending motif are taken from some form of glass beach media.

  Another transitional track, [Sepia] shares a similar story to [Echoes Between] in that it was made just around the re-detailing of tracks. I found it in my project files just hanging around as this delightful little synth melody I don't remember creating, and I decided to work it into a short little arrangement with birdsong added in mastering. It's a pleasant track that I'm a big fan of and I think it serves its purpose of calming the energy down after Corner Left of Midnight

  Oh also, it blends seamlessly into the next track just like [Echoes Between] did.

  (Sidenote, but now that the album's released, it has been brought to my attention that this song was a gift from a friend, and they really like what I did with it. Kind of really cool if you ask me.)


  8. That Irregular Cloudscape

  That Irregular Cloudscape could be considered a redo of Atlas from my first album, but really, it's its own track. Primarily built upon the same chord just shifted up and down, this track has a kinda mystical feel, and to accentuate that, I had the second part seamlessly switch into 7/4. Also, the cymbol crashes on this track were so hard to get the volume right on. They always seemed too loud or too quiet.

  Being an older track, I don't have too much to say otherwise on this one. I enjoy it, and it's got some neat sounds to it. I suppose I could mention that the character in the old YouTube upload for this track specifically was retconned around the time I was re-evaluating what the album was really about, so that's interesting. The new design is one I've always associated with red, but deicided to switch to green for the idea I had going.


  9. [Twin Stars]

  The last transitional track on the album, [Twin Stars] is a little experiement with arpeggiated synths playing out a pre-made chord progression. If you notice, there are two synths playing the same chord progressions. One goes top to bottom, the other bottom to top. They slowly switch between left and right, and change their note length as they do so, giving the feeling that you are hearing them orbit around you. I made a short little animation of two spheres orbiting each other to accompany this idea, but it never amounted to much.


  10, 11, and 12. Sky

  Now, Sky is a three movement piano piece. Movement I, Ascent. Movement II, Long Way Down. And movement IV, Sprites. And in case you are wondering, YES, there is a third movement, but it was cut, though can still be found somewhere... maybe the album cover has a hint?

  Sky as a whole was created to be entirely playable on a real piano. I do not know how to play piano though, so I just did my best to guess. I would love to hear someone play some of the movements though. If it's really wanted, just email me (carameltreatartist@gmail.com) and I can make sheet music!

  Movement I is my personal least favorite, just because the intro feels weak. Funnily enough, there's actually a cut intro to the start of this track that I honestly wish I had kept in. It adds a lot and contextualizes the three movements far better than how movement I does in its current state. Honestly though, I like this part as it's relatively simple while still keeping intrigue. Also the volumes are the main reason I don't like this part much. The piano plugin I use has a few issues with certain notes being far more punchy than others, and it bothers me.

  Movement II is my favorite by far. It's short and oh so sweet. It reminds me of this cafe in the small town my family used to live in. I'm not 100% sure why it makes me think of that, but I think it has something to do with a certain band my mom likes and one of their songs I remember hearing in that cafe. Love that place still.

  When I was composing this piece, movement IV was always the most challenging. Movement I was a driving, yet solemn intro. Movement II was a soft and somber middle part. Movement III was a high-energy build to the closer that movement IV was always meant to be. But I could never write it correctly. You can hear it in movement III, but I considered making movement IV a re-do of the 2nd half of A Glass Of Water from my debut album, but that fell through as I couldn't properly represent it while still keeping the whole piece playable on one piano.

  Eventually, I began to compose what is today's version of movement IV, but got stuck part way through and decided to drastically switch the direction of the track, hence the sudden shift around 46 seconds. Even still, movement IV isn't a closer. It instead blends seamlessly into (rivers) which ultimately acts as the closer, though notably different in tone.

  All in all, Sky is something I really like. Again, I'd love to one day hear it performed on a piano. The strings are entirely optional, as really, when I was revisiting the track for the album's release, adding the strings was an afterthought (even though it brings movement IV up so much from where it once was.)


  13. (rivers)

  (rivers) is definitely the most ambient track on the album, being comprised of the same few chords, distorted and glitched throughout the track until it opens up in a breath of some hidden melody, peeking through just as it did in Sonder for False Violets.

  I personally really love how this track turned out. I experimented with quite a few effects in order to get some of the sounds I did, and going back and balancing and tweaking it was a joy, because I got to fine-tune some of the stranger alterations to the sound. The sounds and title of this track is actually yet another glass beach reference. The ambient sound and breath of fresh air bringing in something new is an idea taken straight from the track (blood rivers) from "the first glass beach album." Except in (rivers), the more eerie ideas are taken up a level in order to have something which acts as less of a breath of fresh air, and more as a strange contemplation of the off-kilter nature of quiet places and ambient works.

  All-in-all, this track is up there as far as my favorites go, despite it remaining largely unchanged form its original YouTube single form. I hope you find it just as pleasant as I do. I've considered making a version without the major distortions, so you might see that come out some time.


  14. Etherness

  "Etherness" is yet another neologism, describing the knowing of the temporary nature of joy from friends and family, in that one day it will not be the same as it once was. A sad idea, yes, but I think it is important to know that change can be vital, and should not be resisted as much as the world does.

  This track as a whole was one I was highly debating on leaving out in favor of some other closing track, but ultimately, out of both inability to create a satisfying closer and the track being mostly done already, I decided to keep it. It's rather similar to another track which I have not finished, but that one, I am saving for a rainy day. Etherness isn't a track I'm particularly fond of, but in retrospect, it works very well as a cap to the album's run, encapsulating the overall feel and messsage fairly well.


Part 3: Artwork and Others

  The Album Cover

  The album cover is a picture of a clocktower by where I live, converted into a pixelart sprite and drawn over with additional detail. The album cover is something I spent so much time on, and really, most of that time was spent working on versions I'd never end up using. One of the most complete versions, I took apart and used in the YouTube thumbnail to fill up the 16:9 aspect ratio space, but the whole version can maybe found somewhere else as well...

  The clocktower specifically is one in a largely abandoned lot. I'm not going to give too many details here, but it is somewhere I like to spend time at night and is the epitome of "The Quiet Places." It exists hardly out of neglect, in a space which many pass by without a second thought. But clearly, some find refuge in such a silent space. Interesting story, but I once found a geocache there, implying that I am not alone in recognizing the value of such a location.

  The album cover also has a few little easter eggs on it. There's a maze, three little sigils representing the original "Red Blue Green" idea for the album, and a little subtext to the album's title, hidden very dimly. I'm not going to spoil the rest, but there are some pretty worthwhile things on the left side specifically ;>


  The ARG

  For those who do not know, an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) is typically a series of puzzles and games set in an alternate reality, much like our own. These are typically done online, and often include codes, puzzles, cyphers, and bits of media relevant to the overarching topic. For mine, it takes place on my website, and the start of it can be found here. It's not too complicated, but there are a few things that require some prior ARG experience to understand.

  Really though, the main focus of the ARG is the story. You can gather most of it from the ARG alone, but the YouTube release of the album also includes various flavor texts which compliment the story featured in the puzzles. Overall, the story is only tangentially related to the themes of the album. It doesn't give the songs any more meaning than they have on their own, and it is not required you know it in order to "get" anything said here.

  Oh, another thing about the ARG is that the "gameplay" of exploring the areas is directly inspired by glass beach's ARG for their most recent album. I actually made a game with the same type of flow and interactions, called Wanderlust, though I never finished it. It's playable on my site though!


  Other

  There are a few little bits of info about the album that didn't really fit anywhere else, so I'll put em here.


Farewell, for now.

  A lot has happened in my life over the course of making this album. My general approach to music isn't a very direct one, and I usually just work on it whenever I feel compelled to, which is why this has taken so long to come out. I've been focusing a lot on myself and improving what I can about my life, and the progress I've made feels wonderful. Compared to where I was when I released Skyline/Flipside, I am so proud of myself given how I am now. I feel more myself, and I feel as though I have some control over what I'm doing and where I'm going.

  This album wouldn't have happened without the support from my friends, so allow me to give some special thanks to some of them here. In no particular order, thank you to Lunaris, Celeste, Clementine, ------, Angel/Casey, Elegy, Klaus, James, my siblings, Melody, Laz, Simon, my parents, Basil, Eleonora (I maybe misspelled this, sorry!), the entire OT/DC Discord server, my therapist, and likely many more I'm forgetting.

  Thank you all so so much, as without your support and companionship, I would have not be where I am, as I am. I love you all.

  And thank you for taking the time to read this. I put so much work into this album, and it means a lot that you'd want to know more about it! ♥

☆ Have a wonderful night ☆

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