Flight Through the Clouds (flight_through_the_clouds.s3m)

 Composed in September of 1996.

This song represented a turning point for me, in several ways.

For starters, sometime in the fall of 1996, I started releasing songs under a new label: Quasar Music Productions. It was still a part of Nucleus, but I wanted a label that was 100% dedicated to music, so with the blessing of the other members of Nucleus, I created a sub-division just for that. To my knowledge, I was probably the only person who released any songs under this label, so it ended up not really being an effective means of promoting my stuff.

More importantly, the Quasar era was when I started figuring things out and actually making reasonably good music. I had a lot to learn, but I was getting better. I transitioned from Scream Tracker to Impulse Tracker and began using its features. Musically, I was also learning new techniques, most of which I learned from observing other songs. Unfortunately, this meant I also imitated other songs a lot - you can clearly hear that many of my songs are clearly inspired by the works of other musicians like Purple Motion, Skaven, Necros, and others. I wouldn’t call it plagiarism, but perhaps “style parody” would be an apt term.

This song, in particular, is inspired by Purple Motion’s Astraying Voyages, a song I liked so much I imitated it twice! (The other imitation was Dark Star (final), which is a bit more blatant) This song is more of an EDM take using its samples. It begins with some chord samples creating an airy intro, before taking a completely different tone once the drums kick in. I don’t remember where I got the chords - I now know them best from Siren’s Merciful Lie, but I know that’s not where I got them. It wasn’t the last time I would use them (such as in Zustand Vortrefflichkeit and Solitude). The chords made me think of clouds and flying, so that’s the image that stuck with me during composition, hence the title.

This song’s composition was my most mature to date. It has a coherent beginning, middle, and end, it transitions from each phase to another, doesn’t rely excessively on repetition, and employs some techniques such as channel echoing and repeated fade effects + max volume on a looping sample to create a staccato. I also liked the shift from a minor to major key near the end. While it’s far from perfect, it was easily my best song at the time, and would be among my top songs for Quasar.

I have a specific memory of this one: I had recorded this song on cassette and brought it to school to play for my friends during lunch break. Most of my friends who knew I was into tracking enjoyed it, but another friend overheard it and commented that he thought it wasn’t very good. I informed him that I composed it and he seemed sheepish that he made that comment. This friend was heavily involved in theater and would later become a musical director on Broadway and has been nominated for a Grammy, so it’s not like he doesn’t know music. I don’t hold any grudges for this incident, by the way, I wasn’t particularly upset at the time and even less so now.

Overall, I was pleased with this song when I wrote it, and I still like it now. It’s not something that would win any awards, but I’m fond of it.
- arcturus