My last uploaded work before Lent

This Lent, I’m giving up the sequencer. And chocolate, and Open Mics.

I realise that I won’t be able to give music up entirely because I might be playing the piano at some point, I do not know when… The whole point is not solely about giving up a negative habit, but also a favourite thing (in my case, three favourite things). It’s a question of self-denial here — how willing are we to curb our tendencies?

I’m also giving it up to prepare for mooting, handle my final bit of coursework and prepare for my exams.

Ash Wednesday falls this Wednesday… so before I take a break from FL Studio 9 and Mario Paint Composer for Lent, here is the work of the season:

This is the first of two final boss battle themes in « Le Carnet du Service National » — there will be a Dies Irae II. But I digress. One of its inspirations is the plainchant “Dies Irae” (the title means “day of ire”, or rather “day of wrath”). The original plainchant talks about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and Judgement Day, thus it was a calm but sombre piece indeed. This one is by no means calm — I wanted to make it beautiful, but sombre. Those of you who have heard the original Dies Irae might be able to spot a reference to the first line (“Dies irae dies illa”) and a bit of the second (“Solvet saeclum in favilla”).

I decided to go ahead with this one because in the story of The National Service Journal, the final boss, Ankoù, was once the ruler of a kingdom (now fallen into darkness and known as the City of Dreadful Night, where all sin is supreme and all chaos breaks loose), and as a friend puts it, “that city deserves its judgement anyway”.

On a final note, I will be updating this space from time to time, as usual, but I will not be posting any works (except for those which I have sequenced in the past but have not yet released).

To all who observe the season of Lent, may God bless you during this season and may it be a fruitful one!