·Hanged Man And The Sun·

This is my submission for Redline's Final Monthly Composing Challenge called The Hanged Man And The Sun. 

Listen on SoundCloud here (not gapless): https://soundcloud.com/lamorak-239504912/sets/hanged-man-and-the-sun?si=67381fb2... 

Listen on YouTube here (gapless + animated cover): https://youtu.be/CerS-wSypXU?si=IL4VuIy8SVzEu_lp 

This is possibly a bit of an out of place submission due to some weird choices I sometimes make when creating songs. Such as the arrangements which don't follow standard arrangement, instead I just did whatever felt right. As I did with everything really, some instruments have some hidden melodies or harmonies in them that add an extra layer that most people will likely not pick up on as it's a little hidden in the mix; for example parts of the bagpipes and the piano. Anyway, this music is meant to be immersed into and take in everything that's going on. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it. 

Here's some info on the tracks: 

The Hanged Man uses a piano (8c), an acoustic drumset (4c), two electric guitars (4c), an upright bass (3c), bagpipes (-3c) and a triangle (-1c). In total ending up on exactly 15 coins. The song starts off with the piano playing a two chord progression. then the guitar joins in following the piano's chords, also adding some odd notes in between. The drums and the upright bass join in as well. After a couple of bars the chord progression switches to a new one, with this one transitioning into the next part of the song I like to call "Stage 2 Cancer", as this is was heavily inspired by the song Cancer by Mansun. This is the true beginning of the song, everything that came before this part was just to throw people off. After 2 bars of this section the piano joins back in playing some chords. The textures you hear during this part of the song are mostly done with the guitar. One of the guitars is playing chords with a bunch of effects to create rich textures, while the second guitar is playing in octaves with a phaser effect on it. The drums also have an effect on the cymbals that creates this high pitched whooshy noise. At around 2:20 the bagpipes make their second appearance in the left ear. Filling up the empty space after the lead guitar plays it's notes. In the background you can also hear the triangle playing, although it's a bit distorted so it might not sound exactly like you'd expect it to sound. The ending of the song is just the piano, bagpipes, triangle and second guitar finishing up the chord pattern I already established. With the second guitar transitioning into the next song.

Unfortunately SoundCloud doesn't support gapless playback so the transitions have a small little gap, but if you were to download the .wav files and put them into your daw and put them next to each other they'd transition properly. Alternatively, you can visit the YouTube link to listen to both videos gapless.

The Sun uses an acoustic drumset (4c), two electric guitars (4c), an upright bass (3c), bagpipes (-3), a triangle (-1), generic perc (3c) and a synth (2c) ending up at a total of 12 coins. The song starts with the guitar from the first song playing octaves with a phaser effect, the bagpipes playing a single note (that gets pitch up at the end), a synth, and the next part of the song as a sample in reverse which when combined make a quick riser/build-up. At around 0:36 (3:40 on YouTube) the lead guitar joins in playing a simple but effective melody over a chord progression, at this time the triangle also joins in which you can hear in the background. At the end of the second time we hear the chord progression, the guitar does some bends that are part of the next part of the song. I guess you could consider this next part the climax? Here the second guitar just starts strumming power chords while the lead guitar does a bendy thing. At around 1:20 (4:23 on Youtube) you can hear the bagpipes join in again in the left ear playing something a little out of place, but still in place. When the chord progression starts again for the second time, the bagpipes play a simple repeating pattern that eventually ends the song. 

Cover art: The cover art was made by me in Blender. There's a couple innuendo's to Mansun's album Six in the two songs, because that album was my main source of inspiration as it's just a masterpiece (if you haven't made the connection yet, the name Mansun is even subtly hidden in my "album's" title). So for the cover I decided to also do a cover similar to the cover from Six. Using a similar idea behind the cover, and also making the first layer of the cover (by that I mean the wall of the building) a similar shape to the wall on Six's cover. In this album cover I hid some of my sources of inspiration in music, and some of my own works. I'll go over them here: The scene takes place in a sort of record store. In the middle there's a tapestry with a sun symbol. In the bottom right corner of the tapestry, on the floor, that's the rock from the Caretaker's An Empty Bliss Beyond This World album cover. The big bomb stuck in the floor is a bomb seen on the cover of Godspeed You ! Black Emperor's album Yanqui U.X.O. The shelf of records nearest to the camera all the way at the front, has the cover of Razor by Mr. Kabuki (although mostly obscured), this is a song by my father. In the right corner of the room you can see Radiohead's Amnesiac record. The record sticking out above Amnesiac is a cover I made myself with the title "Rust", an abandoned song I made once. At the front of the shelf Rust is sticking out of, you can see a small sliver of Mansun's album "Attack of the Grey Lantern". Above rust is a record with the cover of another song of mine called "The Parasite", which might someday be released under a different artist name. Above the Parasite hangs a poster. Which is the art of a friend of mine. He goes by Von_Coerulea on instagram, definitely check him out, he makes some very cool art. In front of his artwork is another record sticking out, this is OK Computer by Radiohead. The record at the front of the second shelf from above is How To Train Your Dragon, my favorite soundtrack of all time. At the front of the second shelf from above on the left side of the room is Kung Fu Panda sticking out, my second favorite soundtrack of all time. On the shelf under Kung Fu Panda, a little bit towards the back, you can see TOOL's Fear Inoculum record (my second favorite album of all time). Under Fear Inoculum you can see another record sticking out which was also made by me called "Bound By Nature". Another abandoned song I made. In the same shelf as Bound By Nature, at the front, you can see Mansun's album cover for Six (my favorite album of all time). Under Bound By Nature you can see Nine Inch Nails' album The Fragile. On the floor underneath The Fragile you can also see a near black record, which is a screenshot from the game Alien: Isolation featuring a Seegson Working Joe burning while it's sitting on the floor, which reminded me of Rage Against The Machine's self titled album cover. In the top left you can see a poster with more Art from Von_Coerulea, as well as on the middle right side of the cover. The record floating above the sun tapestry is the cover of a song called "Voiceless", another unreleased song by me. I'm pretty sure that's everything.

If you read all of that, thank you for your time and attention. I'm personally pretty proud of this project, since it has quite a bit of depth to it that most people might not hear at first listen. Which is why I considered adding the multitracks to the downloads as well in case anyone was interested but ended up ditching that idea, since no one would be.