The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #364: Musical Interlude – Creating “I’m Here, You’re Not”
https://archive.org/download/podcast-364/Podcast%20364.mp3
This week, I’m making one last track for the next Thirteenth Hour soundtrack album. Just when I think it’s done, I think of another track I want to make. I think that’s because I really do think of all these tracks as accompaniments to various sections in the books. The nice thing about that is once you find a central theme (e.g. elements of The Thirteenth Hour theme is one), you can repeat and vary it throughout depending on the needs of the scene. This one goes along with a short segment from The Thirteenth Hour where Logan meets his crewmates again in a dream:
For awhile, all was dark, and I could hear nothing. Then the familiar elements of my recurring nightmare aboard the ship came into focus. But this time, I wasn’t afraid.
And there before me, were all seven members of my crew, smiling, looking down as I lay in my bed. It was like I was in the hospital, recovering from an injury, and they’d stopped by, flowers and get–well cards in hand, to wish me well.
“Guys?” I ventured. “You’re … okay?”
“We are now,” Jake said softly, laying a hand on my arm. The other men nodded. I looked for traces of resentment or anger in their faces, but I saw none.
“I’m sorry, guys, I don’t know what to say … I …”
“It’s okay,” they said.
“You’re not mad?”
“Why would we be mad?” Ben asked.
“I … I dunno. I’m here, you’re not … it just seemed like it should have been the other way around.”
“But it wasn’t,” said Phil, shrugging. “We’ve been watching, the whole time, and in some ways, we’re glad it’s you, and not us,” he said, laughing. The others nodded.
“We’re … we’re really proud of you,” Jake said. “The cards were stacked against us from the beginning. That asshole, Darian.” Other nodded vigorously. “We’ve been amazed you’ve made it this far. I certainly don’t think I could have, not alone.” More head nods.
I wasn’t sure what to say. “Thanks,” I said finally. “I’m glad we could meet again.”
“Well, we’ve been trying to get in contact with you as soon as we could, but … it never quite worked until now.”
The nightmares. “I’ve been having the same nightmare over and over since the ship went down. It always ends the same way.”
“Well, now you know how it ended. Here. Today. Now.”
It felt as if a weight had begun to be lifted from my chest.
The track we’re making today is basically a slow reworking of The Thirteenth Hour theme, similar to what I did with Empty Hands and the meditative theme that became the music video of pixelated Logan flying through the clouds. This track is most similar to the latter but won’t have the angelic accents that that track ended up with. I’d like to give it a more somber tone to fit with the nature of the passage above so will be thinking about which sounds would best pair with the base layer I made this week. I was thinking of something haunting, kind of like the sounds of a Theremin, but am not sure I can make that with my midi keyboard. But I may be able to find something close. We shall see! Stay tuned!
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This spring, if you’re looking for an adult of child mask, check out Thirteenth Hour mask combo package on Etsy. This fall, it became really hard to find good quality masks for our kids as they were going back to school. There are still long wait times for some of the companies we like best, so I thought, why not try to find an alternative? I eventually settled on the triple layer masks available for printing on by the company Flashbay. They were one of the few companies I found that were transparent about their third party safety data (Junior: https://static.flashbay.com/images/certificates/Junior_REACH.pdf?v=1617870020, Adult: https://static.flashbay.com/images/certificates/Sky_Performance.pdf?v=1603078812) which is nice. I was impressed by how well these masks performed on the filtration tests, even after repeat washings. Also, I really liked how both the ears and nose piece could be adjusted for a good fit.
The Thirteenth Hour mask combo also comes with Thirteenth Hour hand sanitizer! (But of course.)
There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
As always, thanks for listening!
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