Rice: This was yet another song I wrote for Shi’an, with the difference being I actually released this one on YouTube. The original artist of this song was… me…. So I reprised my artist role also...... (I would've really rather gotten someone else to do the art, but I thought it would be a stronger concept to stick with "we brought back all the original artists for the ROUNDTABLE REPRISE versions". So I hope everyone appreciates this concept ðŸ˜)
We chose Chifuyu for the ROUNDTABLE REPRISE because she’s meant to represent the season of winter in her band. If you didn’t know, this little girlband from Tokyo6 are each meant to represent a season: Rikka (grey hair) is spring, Karin (dark red hair) is summer, and Chifuyu (glasses, braids) is winter. Don’t ask me where the fall girl is, I want to know too.
We were able to get the very talented Suzie to tune Chifuyu for this! Chifuyu has such a lovely voice but she was quite a bit off-pitch on some notes..... Maybe it's because she's a drummer? (lol) Anyways everyone say thank you Suzie for giving Chifuyu vocal training.
In terms of “love”, this is meant to be a fleeting one. A young teenage love that blooms in the cold under the streetlights while you wait for your dad to pick you up. Soon to melt, and all involved know it, so they cherish the sparkle while they can.
I grew up in a suburb that got a lot of snow, so I have a lot of really nostalgic memories that take place during winter nights, with pitch-black starless skies and snowflakes that glitter under the ugly yellow lights.
Very America-core. It seems mundane to me, but it's not as universal of a Vibe as I thought, so I also got to mansplain certain suburb-snow things to Jamie the Texan and Vane the Californian, like just how quiet it gets with only the crunch of snow underfoot, or how snowflakes collect in and sparkle against dark hair and clothes, and how somehow the flakes are so fat you can see the intricacies with your naked eye when they land on your sleeve. I love snow.
Vane: Can you believe guys, Christmas! Just a week away! Christmas is in a week! Woo-hoo!
I really love orchestral music. Before getting into experimenting with noise and distortion, I almost exclusively wrote with orchestral arrangements. I strayed from this style with my personal projects, but still studied orchestration and such in university. So it was genuinely such a treat to return to the style and relearn how to produce in the style.
Jamie: It got here so fast.
This might be surprising, but there's a part of me that's always yearning to make really slow, pretty, simply-arranged music… the Background Music Composer impulse, or something. I'm also generally a really big fan of Christmas music, being the one time of year you get to reliably hear more complex jazzy harmony in poppier contexts.
I was housesitting for my parents while we worked on this song, and I came up with the reharmonized chords sitting at their piano, in their living room decked out in Christmas decorations… I live in Texas, so it was like 75 degrees Fahrenheit and 70% humidity outside in December, but it at least felt festive
Rice: I feel like Vane and Jamie did such a banger job on the production for this that it sounds SO professional and polished as to just, completely go over the viewer’s head as to how incredible it is. Like listen to my FL Studio Trial Version production compared to the final thing. It’s insane. It’s so good. I think FLAVOR FOLEY should be paid $40 million dollar to write a Christmas album and then retire forever
Jamie: I would absolutely sell out if it meant being able to just write christmas music with weird chords forever i wouldnt even mind
Vane: I’ll sell my soul to Mariah Carey even if it means we must be encased in ice every year until December
Return?