Hello everyone, I am Black201 from Peach Can.
It has been more than half a month since the release of "Escape the Time." Thanks to everyone's support, the sales of this album have exceeded my expectations. I would like to thank all the fans who support me and Peach Can.
This time, I mainly want to talk about the IDEA behind the entire album and some other things. After thinking about it, I believe using a column format can better express the theme I want to convey. If you are interested, please continue reading!
Theme of the Album and Other Things#
As you can see, the theme of this album is "Escape the Time." When I founded Peach Can, I wrote, "Magical girls from various times and spaces gather here." Each album and each project should be an independent story, but these stories should have a beginning. So this first EP is a work of that nature.
By the way, I have basically thought about the projects I want to do in the future for several years. Generally speaking, I will release at least one EP and one album in the coming year.
So, let’s talk about the most important theme this time: "Time and Space."
When I was in the fifth and sixth grades of elementary school, the set-top box had just started to become popular. Most of my entertainment at that time was watching TV (for a large family with only one computer, competing for the computer was quite a competitive game, and I often lost to others).
The show I watched most often was an old British TV series, which you may have heard of, called "Doctor Who."
The plot of this series revolves around a basically immortal "Doctor" who travels through time and space with his human companions, saving civilizations, ordinary people, and the universe.
This can be said to be an inspiration for the background of Peach Can. When I was conceiving the beginning of the Peach Can story, I felt that there should be a project that could introduce this multi-faceted and eventful perspective. After that, no matter how far I stretch the themes, they can fit into the worldview of Peach Can. If you dig deeper, you will find that many elements in this album come from Doctor Who.
Chiyoda Momo
Actually, I don't really like the character Chiyoda Momo.
Although everyone always teases me about being a fan of pink hair, pink hair has never been my favorite, and I can even say it’s somewhat annoying.
Even after the creation of Peach Can, I didn’t have a particular fondness for this character. Sometimes I even found her a bit annoying.
However, from a long time ago, the character Chiyoda Momo gave me a very strong "It’s me" feeling, and as time passed, this feeling became even stronger. Even now, I still haven't figured out why I chose this character as the image of my future music career.
However, unlike two years ago, I am now increasingly noticing the aesthetic of this character and beginning to understand her personality and background. I am starting to understand why she always has a loyal fanbase on the internet.
I began to feel that my music is interpreting her story. I started to step out of the background of the street corner demon tribe and think of richer experiences beyond the character of Chiyoda Momo herself.
Speaking of this, I feel that there is only one other person on Earth doing the same thing as me.
Teacher Mayoo is an artist who draws Chiyoda Momo, but unlike other fanart creators, she always combines Momo's image with other things she likes, whether it’s a band or even just a photo she finds appealing.
She mentioned on Twitter that "she wants to depict Momo's diversity."
Characters, or people, are very complex, far more complex than you might imagine. If you don’t place a character in other contexts, you might miss seeing another side of that character.
I think that’s the essence of fan works. Regardless of the material used, the most important thing is to express your own story, whether that story is captivating or not, and to find like-minded people to share that story. I believe that is the meaning of Peach Can.
I’ve digressed a bit, so let’s get back to this EP.
TR.1 Escape the Time
The first track is the title track of the album. If you listen carefully to the opening narration, you can roughly understand the story of this EP.
This is Fresh Peach, calling out to someone who can hear.
Recently, there have been abnormal fluctuations in the timeline, and signs of spatial collapse have begun to appear. To survive, we must execute the plan immediately!
Basically, it’s a story about Momo in a certain time and space suffering from spatial collapse, opening a "time-space gate," and ultimately being sucked into it.
The beginning of this EP features two Hi-tech Psytrance tracks. I feel that no other style can express this sense of time and space and the universe better than Hi-tech.
Many people don’t know where the vocals come from; in fact, it’s a model of Chiyoda Momo that I created earlier. When I first used it, I experimented with my own voice, but no matter what I did, it just didn’t sound right, so I left that model on my hard drive.
Later, when I was working on this EP, I thought of another method. I now output a normal Japanese female voice monologue using Voicepeak and then run it through this model.
Suddenly it worked! (It turns out my voice was just too unpleasant.)
By the way, the melody in the middle is actually the theme song of Doctor Who. I found that no one noticed it.
39:54
Doctor Who Opening (1963-2024)
14,000 views 491 comments
TR.2 Impending Flux
This song is the earliest one I started writing for this EP. Compared to the first track, this song focuses more on the Hi-Tech Psytrance synth in the piece, serving as a bridge between the two tracks.
I wanted to convey the feeling of traveling through a time tunnel, so the development of the motif is slower than in the first track, even though this song is shorter than the previous one.
I suddenly thought of something: Hi-tech is a very popular electronic music style in Eastern Europe, which in a sense aligns with the artist name, right?
Asuka Iri said that Hi-tech/Darkpsy should not have melodies, but it seems that this viewpoint is completely wrong.
TR.3 Depths of Phantasmagoria
This is actually a Psy Freeform track, and I consider this to be the first true collaboration of the two personas of Peach Can (at least the first one I wrote).
As the name suggests, this song aims to express the realization of oneself after traveling through time and space. I won’t post the narration in the middle; if you’re interested, you can listen to it slowly.
So you will also find that the feeling in the first half is somewhat different from the second half. In fact, the melody in the latter half comes from a fast-paced ID I had planned to write before. If you want to hear it, please message me on QQ.
The reason I didn’t continue writing it was simply that my hard drive crashed. If it hadn’t crashed, you might have heard that track in the Freeform album. Speaking of this—
TR.4 Cinder Glade Another Mix
Several tracks in this EP are inspired by the Magic: The Gathering expansion pack of Doctor Who, such as this track "Cinder Glade," which translates to "烬火林地" in Chinese. When I wrote the first version of this song, I really had the feeling of ashes flying over a fiery grassland.
The version included in Ephemanent was meant to have a strong backbeat bass, with a very Japanese texture of Freeform. The Another Mix included in this EP, many people told me they could hear it; in fact, when I was writing it, I was thinking of the feeling of "City of Solitude."
Although it has that feeling, it was produced in a completely different way, and the atmosphere of the track is also entirely different.
Speaking of this, please check out Thoughost's Freeform album; the original version of this song is in the first track.
TR.5 Elk Cloner (Nirotiy's 'Variant Conficker' Remix)
Regarding Elk Cloner, you can read this article.
https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv31624777
I invited Nirotiy to remix the album, which I think fits the atmosphere of the album very well. As for what can be said about the production of this song, I think it’s better for you to ask him directly.
Others
This release participated in the DM2024 SPRING event hosted by Dizzylab. I originally planned to record a Vlog, but I ended up just playing around. Maybe I’ll write a follow-up post about DM in a few days.
In addition, the illustration for the EP was done by Teacher TARA. To be honest, when I thought of this EP, I felt that if I were to find a domestic fan music artist, TARA would be the only choice. Teacher TARA really captured the atmosphere of the illustration very well even before I played the album for her. Thank you so much!
There’s no need to say more about the designer, Teacher Konseki. Despite the busy month of April, they produced such high-quality album design, which I am very grateful for.
So far, Peach Can has officially begun. I will not stop creating, and I hope everyone continues to look forward to it.
So, this is Black201 from Peach Can. Thank you for reading and listening. See you next time!
Dizzylab: https://dizzylab.net/d/MMEP-001/
Bandcamp: https://momokan.bandcamp.com/album/escape-the-time