Kassiopeia Weekly – 07/06/2025

We had to cut this week's vocal session a little short—we got about halfway through “You’ve Always Been Wonderful.” Zane wrote a pretty dramatic slow bridge with one of his heated spoken word parts. Honestly, I think it’s something he really excels at. I was impressed by the changes he made since the original demo I’d been listening to for weeks.

We’re going to try to get two songs tracked next week to make up for lost time.

🎶 Song X — Our Late Addition Closer

We weren’t expecting to work on this song yet (codenamed “X” since it’s the 10th we wrote), but Zane was fired up to add one last track before we wrap the album. This one’s still fresh—I haven’t even finalized all the guitar tracking yet.

This track is shaping up to be our "art project" song: more ambitious, more abstract, and clocking in around 5 minutes, which is notably longer than our average 3:00–3:30 tracks. We’ve both agreed it’ll be the album closer, and I think it’s the right choice.

Harmonically, it leans into a major-key emotionality with some melancholy touches. There are a few borrowed chords and diminished flourishes to introduce sudden tension in key moments. I initially wrote it with B Dorian in mind (since we play in Drop B), but the feel kept pulling us toward A Major, so it turned into a bit of a mixed-modal stew.

🎥 Blender Visualizers

In other news—I went deep into Blender this week. I’d planned to make a few basic visualizers, but I got way more into it than expected and ended up building three full scenes.

These aren't high-budget VFX reels, but I think they strike a spooky-yet-ironic DIY vibe that fits our tone. I’m using BlenderKit to grab assets quickly and focus on the animation. Here's what I’ve got:

🏰 Scene 1: Forest Path to the Castle

A slow walk through a misty path toward a castle
The moon pulses with the snare, and the ground thumps to the kick
Trees sway with the bass guitar
Looks weirdly good and moody in a kind of haunted game engine way

🕍 Scene 2: Castle Corridor to a Statue Chamber

A long hallway leading to a large stone chamber
Centerpiece: a statue surrounded by ritual energy

🛕 Scene 3: Hexagonal Ritual Room

The camera sits in the center, slowly rotating
Around you: robed zealots swaying rhythmically
The characters are made using a low-fi masked figure I generated by throwing a towel over my head and editing it into something spooky
Feels like you’re part of a surreal, solemn rite

🎁 Eventually I’d love to link to some .blend files so fans can peek behind the scenes.

We’ll be back at it next week finishing up vocals for the final songs. Until then, I’ll keep building out visuals and fine-tuning the album’s last layers.