As an introduction to this track, I would like to discuss a concept that's been heavy on my brain throughout the design of this album: the fact that the amount of nondeterminism of the tracks lies on a spectrum, with one end being "tightly controlled songs that are basically just a consistent track" and the other being "so random as to lose meaning and not be able to really execute as a cohesive idea".

Basically, there's a delicate balance to be struck here, and I had to navigate this spectrum making sure that I knew where I was. Too far to the left end of the scale and I'm not really living up to my promise that every album is unique. If two people compare their copies, they've got to immediately hear all the ways that songs are different, and the left end of the scale doesn't do that. On the other hand, too far to the right, and I'm not actually making any differences meaningful. I nixed a track at one point that was based around a synth playing a completely random melody- sure, it was nondeterministic, but not meaningfully so. The 8 random notes on my copy really don't sound different than the 8 random ones on yours- they're both just bleh.

All this was an introduction to explain where I'm at with today's preview track, "Oblivion". Oblivion is the farthest to the right end of the scale that this album gets. If I've tried to keep the whole album pretty tight around a 5, Oblivion is pushing it at 7 or 8. Why? Because Oblivion is the last track- where the astronaut loses consciousness. This is where things get formless.

On Oblivion, there are no more beats. There are no more breaths. There is only the sound of consciousness fading and the heavens incoming.

So what's unique about each render of Oblivion?

Well, nearly everything. The sounds, the notes. The order in which everything happens. The pacing and time at which things like "warm sounds here" or "tense sounds here" trigger, and what those warm sounds or tense sounds actually are. This track was arranged using a "tape loops" approach (not literally tape loops because I work digitally, but to the same result) where many different chords are coming through the playback heads at different rates and at different times, and being fed to reverbs and delays unpredictably. On one copy of this album, there might be a striking swell at the three minute mark that echoes for the rest of the track and defines it. On another copy that swell might never occur and there might be chilling passages and not as many peaceful ones. It really varies from render to render.

This particular render of "Oblivion" is one of the most serene and peaceful I've had yet. It's so consistent. This one is the music you could die to.