Mare Crisium

Note: This post was written in 2025 and backdated to appear on the day I wrote and published the track.

Last year (2023) I named most of my ambient pieces after lunar seas. It wasn’t really a planned thing – just an easy naming convention – and the definition of “ambient” certainly shifts across the six pieces, ranging from a melodic piano piece with electronic spices to full-on drones. I was initially hesitant to explore those spaces¹And I’m pretty sure I discussed that at least once or twice in last year’s posts, but positive feedback from other Song-A-Day participants encouraged me to keep going with it.

After Song-A-Day ended, two separate family emergencies had me staying in Texas being a caregiver for a total of six to seven months. There was a lot of broken sleep and a lot of that weird “twilight” downtime where there’s nothing to do because you’re waiting for the next thing that needs doing. It’s a weird feeling to be exhausted from doing nothing.

While there, I had a vague idea of turning the Mare tracks from 2023 into an album and made a playlist with them to experiment with track order. As it turned out, I liked them in the order I had written them. The playlist ended up being my sleeping music a lot of the time, or at least something to calm my mind. I don’t go back to sleep easily once I’ve been awakened, and if my brain turns on before I can get relaxed… well, I’m sure a lot of you can sympathize.

The short of it, though, is that I came to really enjoy those tracks, so when I got back home (just in time for Song-A-Day 2024), I decided I’d write some more and either make one long album, two normal albums, or three EPs out of all of it. Going into the month with the mindset that I was intentionally going to write some ambient²Instead of it being the more common form of last resort when I couldn’t get anything else going. made a huge difference to my mental approach.

Production-wise, I don’t think there’s a lot to say here that I haven’t covered ad nauseum in past posts. Maybe the most interesting trick is that I used a pattern and filter gate on the “lead” synth that plays the repeating melodic bit. This just gives it a bit of a fast pulse that complements the much slower pulse in the lower registers.

Those pulses give you a sense of time. There’s a defined tempo, but it’s not any kind of beat. In a way, I suppose this is evidence of being influenced by modern composers like Reich and Glass who used pulses and repetition to such great effect. If I were to ever translate this to an orchestral piece, I think that would become much more obvious.

There’s more to explore in this one: the middle chord progression feels pretty rich, and I like some of the additional detail that makes itself known as things go on. That said, it’s probably better to let this one stand and make those explorations in a future piece.

Colophon

Instruments & Samples

S+A Cycles, Choreographs, Spectres, and Landforms, Hive2, Omnisphere

Effects, Mixing, & Mastering

FabFilter, Gullfoss, Valhalla Delay, PanMan, DS Tantra 2

Source Image: NASA

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Notes

• 1
  And I’m pretty sure I discussed that at least once or twice in last year’s posts
• 2
  Instead of it being the more common form of last resort when I couldn’t get anything else going.