Vane: Night in the Woods is one of my favorite games, up there with Mother 3 and Nier Replicant. Which, tangent, I really need everyone to play Mother 3 RIght Now. There is a free english translation rom hack available that many people put love and care into and also it will change your life. You will look at my son Lucas and you will love him and treat him kindly and with love. Sorry this is about night in the woods but I really need to get on my soapbox about it lest I regret not speaking my truth.

Night in the Woods is one of my favorite games. I initially watched a playthrough of the game on YouTube as a teenager, but didn’t really retain a lot of the game. I think I was a little too young to fully understand and resonate with the themes, but I remember really enjoying the story and characters. I decided to replay it around the time we were working on the second album and after growing up a little bit. I’m really glad I did! There were honestly some parts that resonated so hard with me it made me go, “wow, I’m really glad I’m playing this now, I think some of this would have hit me like a truck if I played it a few years ago” LOL. Mae’s story and her struggle with dissociate really resonated with me, and I wanted to write something that embodied the message of her character. She is such a precious character to me (Also i want angus. Draw me and angus kissing please thank you. Greg is kissing me too).

The quote that influenced this songs direction (and the quote that is being directly referenced in the second verse) is this: “I get it. This won't stop until I die. But when I die, I want it to hurt. When my friends leave, when I have to let go, when this entire town is wiped off the map, I want it to hurt. Bad. I want to lose. I want to get beaten up. I want to hold on until I'm thrown off and everything ends. And you know what? Until that happens, I want to hope again. And I want it to hurt. Because that means it meant something. I means I am something, at least...pretty amazing to be something, at least..."

The main idea I wanted to convey was that the lows and risks of life are worth experiencing in order to fully thrive. There’s been many points in my life where I’ve opted to take the safer route, and found myself regretting the fact that I didn’t take the risk. The more I’ve pushed myself to do things out of my comfort zone, the more I’ve felt like I’ve actually started to live. And sure, sometimes doing those things means I’ll trip, fall, and scrape my knee, and sometimes it does hurt bad! But I’d rather have taken the risk and get scuffed up a bit then have never lived at all.

There's a quote I try to live by Tim Kreider: "If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known." You can’t live in a glass house forever!! You can’t be scared forever!!! You have to live!!! GO TO THE CLUB!!!!!!!

rice: she should've been at the clubbbbbb

Vane: Musically, this one is quite different than our usual! I really wanted to have fun with the arrangement and production direction. Initially, I started what would become the prechorus to test some equipment I got. I was experimenting with the synths and automation with the lié midi controller, and got really attached to how sonic-esque the track sounded. The other foleys also really liked it, so we turned it into a full track with Jamie elaborating a footwork chorus!!

Jamie: I Fucking Love Footwork this song's working title was "footwork foley" up until like a couple weeks before release i think

my gateway drug to it was Machinedrum's Vapor City, an album i adore, but that quickly led me to work from DJ Rashad and other Teklife members. i'm not originally from chicago, but it's a part of chicago's rich musical history that i really do adore - it's so joyously percussive and polyrhythmic and abrasive. there's also a surprising amount of cultural exchange with japanese musicians, with footwork and juke becoming something of a phenomenon overseas as well.

it might feel like a stylistic asspull on the surface, but if anything, it made perfect sense to me to take this song in that direction!! we, too, are making things that walk this path of international genre/scene fusion.

Vane: In general I’m really proud of the arrangement we did in this song. I feel like it’s some of our most creative, and in general we had a lot of fun with it!! I’m really proud of some of the prechorus 2 stuff I did in particular

For the ending, we decided to just have Iroha sing la’s for the final refrain. She’s so overcome with this love for herself that she’s left without words, or something like that. I thought it was very cuteiful

Rice: the vocalist we picked for this song is Nekomura Iroha!

she's a bit of an older voicebank– she first came out for Vocaloid 2 in 2010! she was made in collaboration with hello kitty so she is extremely kibtty. so obviously for a cat-themed song we had to use her… also her synthV voicebank is absolutely insane. it's so powerful. she's so cool we love you iroha

what really made her stand out at the time of her release was her deep, husky voice– provided by Kyonosuke, a famous male utaite!

transfem iroha has always been a very classic take (At least to me) ever since she came out, since she is a female character voiced by a man…..  in this song she's also nonbinary with it that's why she's yellow(orange) and white and black and orple #orple

vane: iroha gender is cat #cat #meow

ah, and yes, about those mirror themes…. let's reveal the answer!!

“Spoken For”, which is about someone that loses their agency, is reflected by “streetcat”, which is about someone that claims their agency.

but it’s never too late to find your voice….!

song art by abi | Return?