June 2016

Candles & Potency (by Jeremy “Solatrus” Iamurri)

As part of the leadup to Volume 10’s release, a full album’s worth of music was prematurely ‘leaked’ by the team. None of the music was from the actual album, and a good guffaw was had by all.

Most of the leaked playlist was vaporwave remixes of old Homestuck music (I didn’t even know vaporwave was a thing!). The first few tracks, though, were actually proposed (but bumped) from the final album. Gave it that ‘air of authenticity’ all modern pranks require. Better yet, it exposed some more solid music to the world. Ironic, I guess?

This one’s an experimental techno remix of ‘Candles and Clockwork’, off of Volume 5. That cool new beat makes it my favorite of the rejected tracks from the album, and my favorite of many ’Candles and Clockwork’ mixes over the years.

Thanks go to Makin for uploading these tracks to YouTube, and for hosting the pre-release stream (which was a riot).

Homestuck Sonata (by David Ellis)

A pretty piano-only take on a couple of old classics. The first half’s a new wrinkle on Homestuck, and the second half’s a ¾ interpretation of Penumbra Phantasm. I’m no student of classical music, but I can’t help thinking of Beethoven on this one.

Pseudumbra Fauxtasm (by Marcy Nabors & Jamie Paige Stanley)

Penumbra Phantasm isn’t on Homestuck Volume 10. But if you really, really want an idea of what it sounds like, there’s pieces of it scattered all over the place.

A few years back Toby played part of it, live, on a piano. This track, Pseudumbra Fauxtasm (alternate title: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Penumbra Phantasm), is a pretty faithful reworking of it. My favorite part’s the break right at 1:25. It’s a bit of the song that isn’t well represented in other mixes, and I love the energy of it.