This day marks the release of a new track and a total redesign of the blog! Don’t get confused, this is still the website of Patrick Schotte, I’m just using my new artist name “Astrophobia” from now on.
Well, as you can see some things changed now. So far I have only produced music under my real name, which always felt a little uncreative, because it is almost essential to have an artist name. Since I couldn’t come up with a good one I chose to use my normal name for the time being, but recently when I was having a chat with a friend of mine, I developed the perfect alias by accident – Astrophobia. It was quite a surprise for me that it seemed to come out of nothing AND stand the test even after a few weeks. The name mirrors what I think can be found frequently in my music: Spacy synth arpeggios, wide sound scapes, a dark mood and topics of fear, destruction and decay.
Having an artist name is one thing, but the suitable design is a whole different thing. That’s why I was looking out for someone else to create the visuals for me and soon I received an offer from just the right guy for this task. Marco Wahler (Av3ris), who is active in the Source mapping scene and currently involved in a Left4Dead2 modification, designed the finished logo as you see it in the header from just a basic sketch I sent him and was able to visualize exactly what I had in mind. He actually doens’t have his own web presence, yet. However if he has a page you will find a link right here on my blog.
Now to the reason you probably came for – more music! As you know in my last post I announced a collaboration project with soundclouder Coma Centauri. It looks like we’re almost finished, but there are still some details to be added. Between the sessions I spent some time on my newest solo track and discovered that the flow had returned. So now I’m able to present the result to you, finally.
Yonaguni:
This track is named after a huge underwater monument in the southwest of Japan. It startet as a short harp melody, if I remember correctly (you see, the songs foundation is old 
) and soon grew into a space jam. Actually the harp melody now forms the intro, although heavily altered. From there I collected many interesting loops and guitar riffs for later use and programmed the synth arpeggio that leads into the songs main theme. The basis was done, but it was around that time I started to lose the motivation to build upon it, even more when collaboration plans for a new project were in the making. After too many weeks of unproductiveness (cool word, huh?) and listening to some Post-Rock and Space Rock albums the desire to pick up my track luckily came back. Most of the guitar parts had to be re-recorded and then it was time to enter the mixing stage. Also I realized what is making my progress with the most recent songs slower, it is actually the guitar. Since you can’t just program notes into the computer like you would do with a synth or a drum machine, it just takes longer to get that perfect take and edit every guitar track until it fits right. But in the end I think it is worth the effort (imagine “Rising” without guitars). You can spot some eBow sample again in the ambient bridge, if you listen carefully – that little device is really helpful.
Now I hope you enjoy the track as much as I enjoyed creating it, tell me what you think. More of my solo work and the results of my collaboration will soon follow and it will get spacy. By the way, if you are an artist interested in collaborations, too, then just leave a comment. Stay tuned.
as I said on your Soundcloud, love the track and interesting to read some background on it here, I like the way it builds from the simplicity of the harp part to full on shredding guitar and huge drums. I definitely hear what you’re saying about the guitar slowing you down, I’ve started using analog synths alot more in my work and I’d forgotten what it was like to have to actually have to repeat a part until you really nailed the take. I’m enjoying getting back to having to play properly again though instead of just correcting the mistakes in midi parts until they’re perfect, also just leaving some of the little mistakes in there sometimes sounds pleasing. Anyway, thanks for sharing, +1 follower
Cheers.
Thank you for taking the time to comment, very much appreciated.
. Cheers, mate.
I was a bit surprised when I read your soundcloud comment, because I don’t know many people who are familiar with the Ozric Tentacles. Great taste, man!
Well, the thing about little imperfections is true, it can actually add a lot of character to a track, if used in the right way. Also, taking the extra work to record something as opposed to programming it can be more rewarding (plus you get the extra chance to come up with even better stuff on accident, just by experimenting).
So I hope you enjoy your stay here, more content should soon follow, although I can be pretty slow at times with updates