Process

An instrumental track… with lyrics

| Forgotten Fields
Areal view of green farmland fields
Image by Sylwia Pietruszka (unsplash.com)

Accidental lyrics

Even though the upcoming album is instrumental, I wrote lyrics for one of the tracks… by accident. A few weeks ago, I wrote a short poem on the theme of an airship in flight:

Silently you sail
As the daylight yields
Wondrous flying ship
To forgotten fields!

Fortuitously, the metre fit the melody of the fifth track on the album: “The View From Above”. I had no choice but to put the two together!

Incidental singing

However, I did not want to record vocals because it felt wrong for the album. So, I decided to include the poem as lyrics to the track, inviting the listener to sing. When Airship goes on pre-order, “The View From Above” will be streamable, and I hope listeners will quietly sing along, like a wistful passenger. (Listen for the melody from the 1:20 mark.)

FORGOTTEN FIELDS

P.S. A small gift: use the discount code THEVIEWFROMABOVE to get 50% off on the album. The code will be valid for one week after the album goes on pre-order (date to be announced).

Creating cover art for Airship, Part III

| Forgotten Fields
Rough cover art mock-ups for the upcoming Airship album
Rough cover art mock-ups for the upcoming Airship album

Sketches

I thought I’d share some of the rough sketches I’ve done for the Airship album cover. They were made in the past couple of months to help me visualise the layout. I’ve written previously about the concept, but briefly, it illustrates the inspiration for the album: the maiden flight of an airship.

Concepts

I pictured the crew preparing for the test, the crowd looking on in anticipation—an atmosphere of excitement and wonder! Over time, this idea evolved and took on an abstract feel. I thought of the flight itself and the ship moving through the clouds. But, I kept coming back to the idea of the airship looming overhead, imposing and terrible, a giant in the sky! I pictured myself standing on the ground as it passes over—a speck in its shadow, agape with awe! Just look at the size of a Hindenburg in relation to the Empire State!

A graphic size comparison between the Hindenburg airship and the Empire State building
The Hindenburg vs the Empire State

Reveals

I hope I headed in the right direction, in the end. I will reveal the final artwork with the launch of the Forgotten Fields Bandcamp page, in the not too distant future. I’m excited and nervous—mostly nervous—but, I tell myself that’s a good thing.

FORGOTTEN FIELDS

Creating cover art for Airship, Part II

| Forgotten Fields
A screenshot of an airship photograph and vector rendering
A screenshot of the cover art design in progress

The fun

I officially started working up the Airship cover art layout, today. This is good, but I can’t help but feel a little sad when the creative process reaches this stage. When you’re still coming up with ideas, there’s an atmosphere of excitement: you’re looking, investigating, collecting and reinventing; there are doodles, collages, sketches and drafts—it’s messy and it’s fun, and anything is possible!

The doubt

But, once a final layout is in sight, there’s only executing the idea. You obsess over details and things take a more serious turn. On top of this, no matter how confident you are in your concept, you can’t help but doubt yourself, just a little. Suddenly, you find a dozen things wrong and you’re tempted to throw it all out and start again. Today, I found myself revisiting earlier concepts and asking all kinds of questions about the one I finally settled on. Like: did I choose the right idea?; would colour be better than black and white?; should the typeface be changed?; does the album even have the right title?

The pause

It helps to pause and take some time to calm down. If an idea is really that bad, it can be changed (or at least be embraced for its badness). I don’t think my concept is quite so terrible. But, you will be a more objective judge than I.

FORGOTTEN FIELDS