I've been revisiting my electronic music lately.

For one, I'm releasing some remixes of my songs that have been trapped on my iPad. Since I'm abandoning the “Bapple Business” moniker (for music at least), why not celebrate my music by putting out the crazy fun stuff too? Enough time has passed (almost three years) to separate it from my serious releases.

Anyway I was thinking about my comments on an earlier post about someone reviewing my music. And who could do a good review better than the artist themself? Is giving yourself an outstanding review egotistical? Well let me answer that question with another question: isn't everything I do? Like I'm literally talking to myself right now, that's pretty egotistical. But there's one thing I know, your flaws are absolved if you make self-aware jokes about them!

I view this as hyping myself up. I am well aware of my flaws; I think I deserve to celebrate what I've done well, what I've put out into the world.

Now that time has given me sort of an outsider perspective, I'm able to evaluate my music more objectively. There are some songs I think are just “perfect”, I wouldn't do anything differently. Ok, maybe I would do stuff differently because I'm a different artist in a different headspace, but I don't think those changes would “improve” the piece. I can't fault it in any way, it's just really good.

I was originally going to make a list of just the songs I thought I made “perfectly”. But I realized I also have to include the ones that aren't necessarily perfect but outstanding. Guys this is so amazing I'm tackling my perfectionism!!!! But seriously, sometimes the good elements of a song just outweigh the bad so much that they don't matter. I'll put a star by the songs that I think are “perfect”, but remember that they aren't necessarily the “best” in this list. In fact, sometimes I think the non-perfect songs on this list are better than the perfect ones; that's why they have to be included too.

In reverse chronological (when I released them + tracklist) order, here we go:

In the Interim

Mirror Image ★

When I came up with this song, it happened really quickly. I love the arpeggios, and all the synths are balanced really well. I'm proud to call this my “last” electronic track. By the way, the cover was made from one of those pictures that I took in my pocket by accident — I just made it blue.

The Cursed Curious ★

I will always come back to this song. I came up with the idea before this, but I needed to make a song for my AP Music Theory class that was in binary form (AABB). So I molded my ideas to fit binary form and then added harmonies on the melody to change it up for the repetition of each section. It was during the early days of the pandemic and my teacher didn't really give a shit about grades anymore, so I felt really free to do what I wanted. I never actually got feedback from my teacher, which I'm still a little upset about. But I made sheet music and everything for it, which meant you could actually play it, unlike some other piano tracks I had made previously. I actually didn't compose it on an actual piano but on a synth; all my piano pieces now are developed on an actual piano now that I have access to a Steinway in my dorm building. I could talk about the theory behind this song all day, but suffice it to say, it might be one of the most genius harmonic progressions I've made, despite the repetition and the simplicity. I'll also point out the 3-2 polyrhythms, they are really cool to me. Not to mention, I'm a sucker for a good waltz.

Something Special

The production is, on first glance, lacking. But I think it would have been overboard to include more than the two synths that I used. I made the main synth — not from scratch, but it sounds nothing like the original preset. I called it “Something Special” because that's what I labeled it in my Garageband when I came up with the main progression. There is little melody, but that's because it doesn't need it. The chord progression really carries the song. The bit in the middle is my favorite, where you think it's gonna resolve but it sorta doesn't? I have never made a moment quite like that one before or since. The top line goes from the root, down a semitone to the leading tone, and then you think it's gonna go back up — if it went back up it would be perfectly satisfying — but it doesn't! It goes down to the dominant, the fifth of the key, which is still in the chord, but creates a sense of disappointment. A sense of disappointment when going back to the root (I) chord — how did I do that?!?!? And it's further accentuated when the bass note is lowered to the leading tone, bringing us to a iii chord. I – iii is one of the saddest progressions in music. I don't care if the song isn't completely perfect, the elements where it succeeds more than makes up for it.

The Forgotten Dream ★

This is a song that should have made it onto Gamma but didn't. I came up with the main progression while making Gamma, but I couldn't come up with the melody, synths, etc. in time. In my mind, the song is called “D” because that's what it's still called in my Garageband; I believe the song is in the key of D major. The production of this is probably the best I've ever done. The song is full but also elegant? And there's a key change! I love making key changes, but they have to work right, and this one does; plus, the key change also marks a change in the progression for one measure, bringing the second chord up instead of down. Unlike on other songs, the force of the synths is not overpowering, but really shows a stylistic choice executed effectively. And I'll maybe count the epilogue with it, but for me, I can separate “The Forgotten Dream” from its epilogue. Not that it's bad, but it's not necessarily one unit. The view on the cover is from a picture I took from the World Trade Center, by the way.

Gamma

257 ★

This is perhaps the most beautiful song I've made. The chime backing is iconic. The major 7th chords in the verses establish the song in a lydian mode, but the C7 chord in the chorus darkens back to major. I always play the arpeggiations on the piano and it's just beautiful. And the bridge!!!! Usually I'm not super good with bridges, but this is quite an exception. The whole production is simple and calm, but the harmony makes it exciting and complex. The lead was really amazingly chosen here.

rainy day ★

despite being directly in the middle of the album, it was the first song I made for gamma. i wanted to make something completely different than what i made on beta. i took that to mean lofi hip hop. although it's notoriously easy to make lofi hip hop, the chords i chose to underlie the garageband samples are actually really cool and i put a lot of thought into them. it may not be my magnum opus, but it's hard for me to deny that it's 100% solid.

Anthracite

Holy shit this song gives me chills even now. The synths that hold up the chords are so edgy and brassy, but they also have this gliding, microtonal quality that makes it so interesting to listen to. The bass drops just work, without being overpowering. It's dark but so exciting, that's a hard combination to get right. The middle is a little weak; I couldn't figure out what to put there so I basically just put in some rejected ideas. But the main parts of the song are just incredible.

Beams

It's a lot, bordering on overpowering. But it's hard to deny that it's also a total classic. I finally figured out how to make swells before certain sections and I used that power. The melody was actually a huge challenge for me when producing, but it works so well that it's hard to remember the struggle. It was originally going to be the album opener, but when I decided to make it the first single, I reevaluated the ordering. “Silk” and “Beams” are siblings in my mind since I made them about two weeks apart, and I couldn't bear to separate them on the album.

Silk ★

An amazing album opener. The chords are exciting enough that there doesn't need to be a melody for most of the choruses. The minor to major flare at the end of the progression is so good, and if I remember correctly, I did it accidentally! The melody in the second verse is super subversive and the funky quality of the lead certainly compliments it. The ending is my favorite ending in any song I've made, flipping the whole song on its head and leading the listener into Gamma.

Beta

Openings ★

The end of Beta was really rocking. I made this song right as I was leaving middle school and entering high school. There were so many new opportunities opening up for me, so although the song is “sad” per se, it's also sort of uplifting? At least that's how I've always heard it. The chords for this song later were adapted to become “There's a Tomorrow”, which is actually very similar in mood now that I'm thinking about it. Regardless, the song is simple and beautiful, with the echo filling the space. As I got through Beta, the songs became more polished. Unlike Gamma, which saw all the songs released at around the same time, Beta was more of a compilation of the songs I made during 8th grade. The tracklist is even ordered in the same order I made them; you can really hear the production and polishing improve as you go through the album.

Arctic Lux

This piece is very similar to “257” in that the arpeggiation of the chords really makes the song. The voice leading is so genius that I don't know how I could have come up with it. I remember thinking the key change at the end was super cool when I made it; I'm less keen on it now, but I still think it's a cool ending, even if the execution was a little lacking. For a while, this was my favorite piece. Now, not so much, but I still really love it.

Crystal Fuel

It's hard to believe that this is my first song that I made while I exited the experimenting phase of my music. The melody and chords work together to create a music-box-like sound before entering into the more intense sound of the chorus. The crystal and the fuel. Again, the chord progression is simple but works really effectively; it might be my favorite progressions that I've made. It's definitely a tiny bit rough around the edges production-wise, since I didn't exactly know transitions yet. But I think the actual song makes up for it; I know it does for me.

Alpha

Vacuum

I made this song while on vacation with my grandparents, and it established the riff style that I continue to use to this day. To make it more interesting, I added a random key change in the middle. If I made it today, I may have made the key change make more sense, but I think that would be a mistake. The strangeness and “alien-ness” of the key change actually really works for the theme of being alone in the vacuum of space. The three-note pattern at the end of the song (or I guess the end of each verse) was supposed to slide, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I would change that if I remade it.

Hope

I'm not sure what I said before, but this is my favorite song. It was supposed to have lyrics, but I chickened out. Partially because I couldn't write lyrics. I mean I could write lyrics but they sucked. I really want to put lyrics to it someday. The song actually was not supposed to be about hope but rather the lack of hope. I was in 7th grade, dealing with being undiagnosed depression and undiagnosed gay. This song really influenced my progression as a musician in terms of chords and style, especially the minor plagal cadence. The chord progression is E – B – A – Am6, but when I used the auto chord thing on Garageband, I put in D9 so I didn't understand how it functionally worked. Rearranged, D9 is just Am6add11; D isn't actually in the chord in the song, so it's just Am6. I didn't have any pattern with the piano because I didn't know how to make one really, but the simplicity of the song just makes it so much more beautiful and heart wrenching. I'll likely come back to this one.