Snowclone Saturday

June 8, 2022

I made the album cover before actually starting on the songs. This was made using the same deck and drawing procedures as Albumen Gin, minus the cards I used on that album. I'm generally happy with how this one turned out, though there are a lot of samey arrangements here too. (This album also had a sleep break in the middle, but even counting that time the album still took less than 24 hours.)

The font on the album's cover is This Boring Party, by Tom7.

Tracklist (21m 50s total)
  1. Throwback Thaumaturgy (1m 17s)

    Draws:

    • Seven of Hearts (Trills)

    • Seven of Spades (Retro Sounds)

    Most of the instruments here are generated with LMMS's NES sound chip emulator. I couldn't make a good snare sound, so I took a snare sample and bitcrushed it; I also used the Game Boy sound chip emulator for the melody because it sounded better.

  2. That's All There Is To It (2m 21s)

    Draws:

    • Six of Hearts (Blue Notes)

    • Two of Spades (Vocals / Speech)

    The speech sample used here is taken from an old educational film about posture.

  3. Detergent Horn (1m 8s)

    Draws:

    • Ace of Spades (Non-Musical Sounds)

    • Six of Clubs (Omit Notes)

    Building your song around a creaky door probably shouldn't work, but I kind of like the way it sounds.

  4. Telephonic Alterations (1m 39s)

    Draws:

    • Queen of Clubs (Altered Chords)

    • Jack of Spades (Frequency Modulation)

    Technically this uses phase modulation for most of the non-drum sounds, but I'm pretty sure PM and FM get mixed up a lot.

  5. Snowclone Saturday (2m 16s)

    Draws:

    • Joker (Draw two more cards)

    • King of Spades (Step Synthesizers)

    Jack of Clubs (Planing)

    Ten of Hearts (Arpeggio)

    Not much to say about this one other than moving a nice chord voicing around is fun.

  6. Once More With Feeling (2m 4s)

    Draws:

    • Four of Clubs (Modulate!)

    • Six of Spades (Text to Speech)

    It turns out looping phrases over and over is really fun.

  7. Railway Exorcism (2m 25s)

    Draws:

    • King of Hearts (Anticipations)

    • Three of Clubs (Subverted Resolution)

    Couldn't figure out how to subvert a resolution during the song, so I just had the song end on the leading tone. That's a fairly subverted resolution, I'd say.

  8. Cheerful Regret (2m 8s)

    Draws:

    • Eight of Diamonds (Walking Bass)

    • Queen of Spades (Hocket)

    I'm not sure what a "cheerful regret" would be.

  9. Only Half Listening (2m 21s)

    Draws:

    • Five of Clubs (Four-Chord Loop)

    • Five of Diamonds (Off the Grid)

    The off-time snare drum reminds me of someone drifting in and out of sleep.

  10. The Way Back Down (2m 4s)

    Draws:

    • Ten of Clubs (Circle of Fifths)

    • Eight of Hearts (Call and Response)

    The chord progression here is what's sometimes called a plagal cascade, where you just keep walking down the circle of fifths. Here, we go from F to C to G to D to A to E to B to F♯. F♯ is equivalent to G♭, which resolves to F, letting the progression loop naturally.

    Not sure the melody qualifies as being call and response. Ah well.

  11. DODECA (2m 3s)

    Draws:

    • Seven of Diamonds (Backbeat)

    • Three of Spades (Drastic Change in Sound)

    I had the basic idea for this when I started making the album, but I couldn't fit it with any of the prompts. The 303 line here is a randomly generated twelve-tone row, meaning it contains all twelve notes. The bassline in the piano segment is that same twelve-tone row. Harmonizing a random sequence of notes is a fun exercise.