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+Album: 7th Gate Project
+Artists:
+- Catboss
+Date: April 21, 2012
+Date Added: February 3, 2022
+URLs:
+- https://soundcloud.com/catbossstudio/sets/7th-gate-project
+Cover Artists:
+- Homestuck
+Color: '#00fcf8'
+Groups:
+- Fandom
+Commentary: "<i>Catboss:</i>\nThe “Seventh Gate Project” - as I like to call it -\
+    \ is something I have been planning for a while now. At least like half a month,\
+    \ I’d say. I started it for more or less the same reason I started this blogthing\
+    \ - I mentioned that I felt that my music was gaining a sort of “direction” to\
+    \ it, and I guess this project is basically to see where it’s going, and to develop\
+    \ my own style. \n\nThis project will involve remixing (at least) the four kid’s\
+    \ Land Themes, along with adding my own touches to it. Whether I will do the troll\
+    \ Land Themes or not, we’ll see. I don’t want to make any particular commitment\
+    \ to that yet because that means another 12 songs, and I wasn’t intending for\
+    \ this project to take too long. Plus I’ll have to use mainly original stuff since\
+    \ with the exception of [[track:phaze-and-blood|Pulse and Haze]], none of the\
+    \ trolls lands have official themes. \n\nMaybe I’ll just do it as an on-and-off\
+    \ thing after I’m done with the 4 lands.\n\n<i>(commentary redux)</i>\nCompleted\
+    \ around June 2011, the 7th Gate Project was a series of remixes of songs from\
+    \ webcomic and internet sensation Homestuck.\n\nThese remixes were done in an\
+    \ attempt to find my own \"sound,\" as it were, and they have contributed greatly\
+    \ to my growth as a musician. Recent developments in the comic have also led me\
+    \ to consider extending this project; it will be interesting to see how far my\
+    \ ability has developed since a year ago.\n\nEnjoy!\n\n<i>Niklink:</i>\n(Technically\
+    \ speaking, this release doesn't have any actual cover artwork. These songs were\
+    \ posted to Soundcloud as a \"set\", which is what is being counted as a release\
+    \ here, and the set displays the artwork of the first song, so I am going with\
+    \ that as a sort of placeholder. However I would be remiss if I did not mention\
+    \ that on skaia.net, which has hosted a copy of this album for many many years,\
+    \ this release is represented by slightly modified artwork:)\n<img src=\"media/misc/7th-gate-project.png\"\
+    \ width=\"400\" height=\"400\">"
+---
+Track: Through the Seventh Gate ~Land of Wind and Shade~
+Duration: '4:33'
+URLs:
+- https://soundcloud.com/catbossstudio/through-the-seventh-gate-lowas?in=catbossstudio/sets/7th-gate-project
+Cover Artists:
+- Homestuck
+Referenced Tracks:
+- Warhammer of Zillyhoo
+- track:doctor
+Commentary: "<i>Catboss:</i>\n<i>(original commentary)</i>\n“Through the Seventh Gate\
+    \ ~Land of Wind and Shade~” is a song that contains many things that I am a complete\
+    \ sucker for. Soaring string melodies? Check. Piano solo with lots of reverb?\
+    \ Check. Chorus? (I know it’s synthesized eh who cares) Check. Running notes,\
+    \ lots of them? Check. Dramatic piano octaves? Check. Mash them all together with\
+    \ a bunch of windy sounds and you get this.\n\nOne odd thing though is I’m using\
+    \ a Battery preset meant for dance songs. I, uh\ndon’t actually like dance that\
+    \ much\nso it’s a bit of an oddity that I actually use it a lot. \nI guess you\
+    \ would describe this song as a weird mishmash of dance-electronic-orchestral\
+    \ stuff.\n\nWhich is cool. I think I would quite like that, actually. I would\
+    \ definitely like to fiddle around more with electronic stuff though\n\nAlso,\
+    \ I find that this song is weak in the bass, which isn’t really a weakness for\
+    \ this particular song but is more one of my weaknesses in general. So yes note\
+    \ to self: improve.\n\nThat’s enough ramblin’ from me.\n\n<i>(commentary redux)</i>\n\
+    The Heir of Breath enters the Tower of the Tempest...\n\nAlthough many seem to\
+    \ prefer [[track:through-the-seventh-gate-land-of-frost-and-frogs|Land of Frost\
+    \ and Frogs]] more, this is my personal favorite from the set. For one, it strays\
+    \ furthest from the source material. For another, I experimented much more heavily\
+    \ with dynamic changes in this song, and I'm honestly quite happy with the outcome!"
+---
+Track: Through the Seventh Gate ~Land of Heat and Clockwork~
+Duration: '4:36'
+URLs:
+- https://soundcloud.com/catbossstudio/through-the-seventh-gate-lohac?in=catbossstudio/sets/7th-gate-project
+Cover Artists:
+- Homestuck
+Referenced Tracks:
+- Tribal Ebonpyre
+- track:beatdown-strider-style
+- track:atomyk-ebonpyre
+Commentary: |-
+    <i>Catboss:</i>
+    <i>(original commentary)</i>
+    Sometimes songs come to me more or less fully formed - this was the case for [[track:through-the-seventh-gate-land-of-wind-and-shade|LOWAS]]; some fidelity is lost in the transition from imagination to audio, but that song is more or less how I imagine it.
+
+    Other times, though, I have far less to work with. In this case all I had was the opening and a rough idea of where I wanted the song to go. Dave is the perennial coolkid so I figured the Seventh Gate song for LOHAC would be far more casual than [[track:through-the-seventh-gate-land-of-wind-and-shade|LOWAS]]. Sort of a “herp derp gonna waltz in and slaughter the denizen all cool-like”, but other than that I didn’t have anything else. So I don’t really do my own thing like I did for [[track:through-the-seventh-gate-land-of-wind-and-shade|LOWAS]], barring some improvisation on the bass (I like bass solos). Later there was [[Tribal Ebonpyre]], because I was using bongos already anyway.
+
+    So yes.
+
+    It’s also a tribute to Castlevania music, to an extent.
+
+    I also have a heck of a lot more percussion in this song than I otherwise would have; 1x drum kit, 1x sample set full of metallic-ish sounds, and bongos. I would have added record scratches too (it’s Dave after all) if I had satisfactory ones, but I don’t. Not now, anyway. If I ever revise this song I might find some and add them in.
+
+    Key changes: there are 2. The second one, I think, actually works out better than the first despite the fact that I never intended for it to be there.
+
+    Annnnd finally we end with a simple drum riff and a fadeout. That’s all folks! I’ll probably work on [[track:through-the-seventh-gate-land-of-light-and-rain|LOLAR]] next.
+
+    <i>(commentary redux)</i>
+    The Knight of Time enters the Forge of Flame...
+
+    This song was heavily inspired by the music of the Castlevania series. More specifically, I tried to emulate the style of one particular song - "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyXRV7wkeyoAn">Empty Tome</a>," from Order of Ecclesia. I think it's possibly one of my favorite songs from the series!
+---
+Track: Through the Seventh Gate ~Land of Light and Rain~
+Duration: '4:36'
+URLs:
+- https://soundcloud.com/catbossstudio/through-the-seventh-gate-lolar?in=catbossstudio/sets/7th-gate-project
+Cover Artists:
+- Homestuck
+Referenced Tracks:
+- track:endless-climb
+- Black Rose / Green Sun
+Commentary: |-
+    <i>Catboss:</i>
+    <i>(original commentary)</i>
+    Slow songs are NOT my forte. Welp.
+
+    In any case this song demonstrates the things I like to do with slow songs - ramp up the reverb and delay, strings, background vocals. Orchestral percussion. Lots and lots of long notes. Music-box-ish ending (and even an interlude!).
+
+    This was supposed to be ambient-ish, and vaguely creepy. I actually quite like the opening! I tried to give it a sort of underwater alien feel because Rose’s denizen did kill everything in the water after all. So yeah. On the other hand, I think it ended up sort of relaxing instead. Welp konec0 what are you doing.
+
+    It’s not as if final dungeons can’t have relaxing themes though.
+
+    Also: Now I’m wondering if I should have added rain sound effects.
+
+    Oh I remembered something else: I keep feeling like I have to get over my aversion to weird minor keys, so I decided to do this one in C# minor. Riiiight at the very end though I gave up; the music-box-ish part at the end was done in D minor and then I just transposed it down. I’m lazy, whatcha gonna do about it.
+
+    Anyway that’s about it for this one.
+
+    Next up is [[track:through-the-seventh-gate-land-of-frost-and-frogs|LOFAF]]!… actually no. I think I’ll let [[track:through-the-seventh-gate-land-of-frost-and-frogs|LOFAF]] sit for a while, because I don’t really have any good ideas for it and I want it to be good. We’ll see.
+
+    Meow!
+
+    <i>(commentary redux)</i>
+    The Seer of Light enters the Sea of Silence...
+
+    Slow songs are definitely not my forte. As such, Land of Light and Rain was the hardest of the four songs for me. I tried using sounds such as the bowed waterphone to create an unsettling atmosphere, but I think the song still ended up sounding too relaxed and even a little sluggish.
+
+    Slow songs are definitely something I have to improve on.
+---
+Track: Through the Seventh Gate ~Land of Frost and Frogs~
+Duration: '5:43'
+URLs:
+- https://soundcloud.com/catbossstudio/through-the-seventh-gate-lofaf?in=catbossstudio/sets/7th-gate-project
+Cover Artists:
+- Homestuck
+Referenced Tracks:
+- track:frost-vol6
+- track:dissension-original
+- Sunsetter
+Commentary: "<i>Catboss:</i>\n<i>(original commentary)</i>\nRemember when I said I’d\
+    \ sit on LOFAF for a bit? I lied.\nokay not really\nmore like I got an idea, but\
+    \ then I was going to do other stuff, but turns out it’s one of those ideas that\
+    \ cripples your creative output unless you do it first, so yeah I was pretty much\
+    \ forced to do it\nthem’s the breaks\n\nANYWAY.\n\n[[track:frost-vol6|Frost]]\
+    \ is one of my favourite Homestuck songs. Go listen to it because it is fantastic.\
+    \ I could probably leave it on loop all day and not get tired of it. It’s also\
+    \ Jade’s land theme so there’s pretty much no way I wasn’t going to put it in\
+    \ here.\n\nThe original idea for this song was always to use [[track:frost-vol6|Frost]]\
+    \ as a “backdrop” and then link it to other songs, but to be perfectly frank I\
+    \ wasn’t expecting to use [[track:dissension-original|Dissension]]. I was intending\
+    \ to transition straight to [[Sunsetter]], but then I played a bunch of stuff\
+    \ and was like “hey this sounds like a Homestuck song” and it turned out to be\
+    \ [[track:dissension-original|Dissension]] so I used it. My subconscious is a\
+    \ thief sometimes. Turned out for the better, really, it’s one of those happy\
+    \ little coincidences that happen sometimes. =3\n\nAlso: [[track:dissension-original|Dissension]]\
+    \ doesn’t get remixed enough. Needs more luv~~\n\nLet’s see, where was I.\n\n\
+    [[Sunsetter]] might seem like an odd choice really, but since its cousin [[Sunslammer]]\
+    \ (by [[artist:seth-peelle|Beatfox]]) was [[flash:3001|featured in the comic itself]]\
+    \ it’s become more or less linked to Jade, despite the fact that [[Sunsetter]]\
+    \ was originally supposed to be a Dave strife theme if I remember? And that is\
+    \ why I chose it! Which makes [[track:frost-vol6|Frost]] + 2 strife themes, which\
+    \ I think actually makes for a decent seventh-gate theme.\n\nStylistically I went\
+    \ for something between [[track:through-the-seventh-gate-land-of-wind-and-shade|LOWAS]]\
+    \ and [[track:through-the-seventh-gate-land-of-heat-and-clockwork|LOHAC]]. It’s\
+    \ not as dynamic as the former in terms of… dynamics (-_-“) and tempo, but I went\
+    \ for stylistic shifts instead; the sudden orchestral [[Sunsetter]] was completely\
+    \ intentional though, as was the slower, more ambient ending. As a result this\
+    \ actually ended up more complex than [[track:through-the-seventh-gate-land-of-wind-and-shade|LOWAS]]\
+    \ did. It was quite fun to compose.\n\nAltogether it’s a fun romp to end off the\
+    \ Seventh Gate Project, and I’m quite satisfied with it.\n\nNow what to do next\
+    \ hmmmmmm\n\n<i>(commentary redux)</i>\nThe Witch of Space enters the Glacier\
+    \ of Genesis...    \n\nI really enjoyed pulling the sudden switch from what was\
+    \ essentially house-inspired electronica to orchestral. I've used several more\
+    \ times since, such as in [[Vodka Mutiny]] or <a href=\"https://soundcloud.com/konec0/jackpot-birthday-bash-mix\"\
+    >Jackpot (Birthday Bash Mix)</a>. I'm not personally fond of the idea of pigeonholing\
+    \ songs into genres, so making this song was a real treat for me; I like to think\
+    \ of it as kind of genre-fluid, and that's interesting to me."