Aubin Grove: a chillwave track about the titular train station marking the end of the new longest period (8+ months) of no new MOULE releases! -- • Check out Aubin Grove's merch: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/184174480 • Aubin Grove Cover Art Timelapse: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=JWmyRLplXe0 • All MOULE links + more streaming sites: https://MOULE.WORLD -- Aubin Grove is my 140th release, and the sequel to my 14th release Cockburn Central (moule.bandcamp.com/track/cockburn-central) released in early 2020. In fact, Aubin Grove was finished on December 31, 2020, but only remastered two days before release, as listening back to Cockburn Central I became very ashamed of the mastering I did on it, and inspired me to end my 8+ months of not releasing anything by releasing a well-mastered track about the next train station on Transperth's Mandurah line: Aubin Grove. (Fun fact: it does not use Logic Pro's Mastering Assistant; I made the track sound washed out on purpose to capture a more chillwave feel.) -- The "Next station: Aubin Grove" and "This is Aubin Grove" train announcements were recorded on August 9, 2021, as were many other train stations' announcements recorded at different dates, intended to be included in tracks for a really long album series for each Transperth line, with one track per station. I've come to accept this is a monumental project size for me so I've just settled with releasing tracks like this for whatever stations I can. This is also me fighting back against my perfectionism. -- As with Cockburn Central, Aubin Grove was inspired by "BlueLineHome" by MS-W: https://sunsetgrid.bandcamp.com/track/bluelinehome -- As for its cover artwork, it took over 6 hours to make, closely overlaying vector shapes in the Assembly app for iOS over a photo of the station I took in early 2022, followed by a photo of a Transperth B-series train I took in early 2023. This is in contrast to Cockburn Central's artwork when I had much less patience making artworks and settled with a messy cartoon filter for it. -- Towards the end of this artwork's creation, my OCD and perfectionism once again began obsessing with details and I felt compelled to add them, such as the tiny labels beside the train's doors and shadow effects. Coupled with an increasingly lagging Assembly file, it added to this artwork's time to make, but in the end I think it's worth it as I'm quite proud of this artwork (it's rare for me to be proud of my own music and art!). -- Instead of increasing the speed of this artwork's timelapse's video (https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=JWmyRLplXe0) to a really fast speed to make the timelapse shorter, from now on I'm opting to only increase the speed a little. This results in much longer timelapses which are more accessible to those with sensitivities to rapidly-changing imagery, as well as more detail and attention on how I carefully moved each vector shape to overlay over the photos. -- Let me know what you think on the Fediverse (https://mastodon.moule.world/@MOULE), in a comment to this, and for more MOULE, visit: https://MOULE.WORLD more

Amanda and the Trash Panda team up to start some street mischief! They've set fire to one of the secret data centres the Bugs built to wreak their cyber havoc – but not before installing some malware and making off with some expensive RAM! -- • Amanda and the Trash Panda Merch: www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/177361781 • Amanda and the Trash Panda Cover Art Timelapse: redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=5UKLG348yyo -- Amanda and the Trash Panda began on September 19, 2022, initially only as the bubbly section in the middle and ending, but was merged with a similar-sounding drum and bass track called "Ubique" begun on April 30 that same year which makes up the other parts of this track. Amanda and the Trash Panda was in turn an edit of a currently unreleased laser-tag-themed track currently called "PEW PEW PEW!!!!" made before that. -- In MOULE WORLD lore, Amanda has a crush on the Trash Panda, as they have a lot in common: they're both street animals with a love for garbage and mischief. Also in MOULE WORLD lore, rogue cyber agents called the Bugs are setting up secret data centres consuming much of the planet's energy, and distorting the web and even reality itself to bring about the Singularity. The Trash Panda found one of these secret data centres while foraging for goodies in the trash, so he invited Amanda along to destroy it and steal its contents! Beside the entrance to this secret data centre is a missing poster of Rocky, a fellow raccoon, smiling widely and giving a thumbs-up gesture, almost as if smiling down on Amanda and the Trash Panda's data centre destruction. It's possible the pair don't even care about the broader positive effects their actions have just caused, and they just set out for some fun, destructive mischief. Or maybe they know something the Cyber Threat Resistance League doesn't? -- As for its cover art, its design process was straightforward, though I did spend a lot of time on small details like shadows. Good thing assets I've already designed for previous cover artworks, like Smartass Smarthomes' data servers, helped me here. I see no point in reinventing the wheel! -- Let me know what you think on the Fediverse (mastodon.moule.world/@MOULE or direct messaging me here, and for more MOULE, visit https://MOULE.WORLD!more

MELT - My newest release in nearly 6 months, MELT has bubbly synthwave summer vibes soundtracking increasingly hotter summers! -- • Listen on MOULE WORLD Music: https://music.moule.world/melt • Cover Art Timelapse: https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=Sq8NQv-XMIQ • "MELT" Merch: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/176646403 -- After nearly 6 months of not releasing anything, I'm slowly getting my creative juices flowing again and have finished this track! My 138th release, "MELT" began on Boxing Day 2021 in Perth, Australia in the middle of a 44ºC (111.2ºF) day, which was the hottest holiday season in the world that year (it was 43ºC on Christmas). -- Spurred on by the absurdity of this, I got on my old MacBook Air to begin the opening and middle sections of this bubbly synthwave track in GarageBand, calling it "MELT" in all caps to signify the heat I was feeling. I went along with synthwave as a genre for this track due to its close associations with summer, and went for an upbeat theme as an ironic contrast to the seriousness of extreme heat to emphasise this absurdity. Later on I moved to a MacBook Pro and used Logic Pro to work on this. -- This track was inspired by a track by Gary Haywood (AKA Carbon Footprint Music Productions) and Debbie D called "Brave New World", who I discovered on indie music Twitter back when I started out in 2020: https://garyhaywood15.bandcamp.com/track/brave-new-world -- The 44ºC day I made this, December 26, 2021, was also the day that turned me into a winter lover – while I find the visuals of summer appealing, summer itself is way too overrated and shouldn't be marketed as this extroverted "go-to-the-beach" weather, especially here in Australia where we have the highest skin cancer rates in the world. I'd rather stay indoors and protect myself from the sun! -- This track is also me returning to my creative spirit from 2020 where I'd just make and publish music on my Bandcamp first as soon as it's done, without having to worry about distributing my music to Spotify, YouTube and all the other platforms, nor worry about tying this in with any MOULE WORLD lore. As angry as my inner perfectionist STILL is about this, which held me back for the past 6 months and STILL demands consistency and deep lore in everything I do, I believe this is the right way to go for me. -- As I wrote in the description of my track Please Wait: -- "I know one thing for sure: my inner perfectionist's ways of insisting I release well-mastered music averaging 7 minutes in length consistently, spend hours making very detailed cover artworks, and tying *all* my releases to MOULE WORLD lore has held me back for the last few months and I must let it go, but what's next for me is uncertain. Releasing this track is a part of this lengthy process to embrace the new and hopefully more liberating artistic process, whatever that is." -- A relevant Mastodon thread I made shortly after finishing this track and began work on my cover art for this: https://mastodon.moule.world/@MOULE/115667808843408651 -- As for this track's cover artwork: my initial idea was a melting ice cream in front of a stripy blue-and-orange background, then I decided on a melting ice cube to not only symbolise hotter summers, but also the end of my "creative winter". -- I froze some ice cubes and took a photo of one under the summer sun, using iOS's photo-editing tools, as well as Enlight (now Photofox), an iOS photo editing app, to enhance its contrast and details and add a blue tinge to make the ice cube look chillier, initially as a reference image to draw vector shapes over it in Assembly, making the ice cube the centre-piece instead of melting ice cream. However, I got sidetracked and tried to make the ice cube appear more melted by distorting the bottom half of it, but still didn't like it, so I relegated it to a hexagonal tiled background. -- After deliberating just slapping the MOULE logo on it and calling my artwork done, I moved on to Assembly and agreed on my original melting ice cream idea. I once again overthought things because my brain wanted to apply lots of glistening details to the melting ice cream design, but I could achieve this effect much easier by simply drawing drops. Then it was simply a matter of designing the MOULE logo and word art with the drops to go along with the theme of MELT. -- Some extra designs, involving both the ice cream and ice cubes and derivative designs of them, are available on my Redbubble store in my Summer category: https://www.redbubble.com/people/mouleofficial/shop?artistUserName=MOULEOFFICIAL&collections=3108050&iaCode=all-departments&sortOrder=top%20selling -- Let me know what you think on the Fediverse (https://mastodon.moule.world/@MOULE), and for more MOULE, visit https://MOULE.WORLD!more