For this project, I took the momentum from my first project of writing songs, and combined it with some of my more customary sampling. As I was working on it, I decided that having the music tracks be more concentratedly repetitive would be my foundation, and the swirling ... stuff ... I was putting on top of it would lend the effect of slow, sweeping change against the more localized, incidental changes in the base. Additionally, I chose to work in clips from John Hodgman's "The Areas of My Expertise", "No Maps for These Territories" with William Gibson, the audiobook of Terry Pratchett's "Colour of Magic", and Max Brooks' "World War Z" (audiobook). Hodgman is discussing fictional facts regarding Ragnarok and Norse mythology. Gibson is describing how there was a fundamental change that took place when the Oklahoma City bombing occurred - mind you, the film was released in 2000 - where something terrible had happened in middle America. Additionally, he says the following, which really resonated with me, particularly in context of this project and this class: "And I think we all have these moments that are virtiginous and very exciting, in which we realize the contemporary, absolutely. And I think it induces terror and ecstacy, and we retreat from it because we can't stay in that state of panic, which is, I think the real response to what's happening to us. We're more comfortable with an earlier version of who we were and what we were - it makes us feel more in control." I used Pratchett's description of the Great A'Tuin, the giant, interstellar turtle, as an expression of the enduring nature of the cosmos. The World War Z clip is used for its humanistic qualities, the tenacity of the blind old man living in the mountains, fighting off the living dead alone, juxtaposed with the fact that he is fighting off people that have, at least on a very basic level, transcended death. I feel like it is demonstrative of several layers of change and potential, and really helps set up the latter half of the piece.

The drums were all sequenced in Ableton Live. I played all of the instrumental parts, to a click, and dropped the drums in behind them. There are a pair of slowly sweeping, phased tracks of bass and chunky guitar, effected lead guitar, and a pair of almost clean guitar tracks providing a lot of the rhythm.