I sit here, on the eve of my birthday, 2 days shy of the release of my new EP titled Planetfall, and I take a breath and exhale. Between work, family and my music, I lead a very busy life. The release of my last album, Pause was actually no pause at all for me, as I immediately went into post-production, mixing and mastering of Planetfall. Why an EP you ask? I think I will save that for the next post, but for now, as I like to do, I want to share with you background information on the new release and artwork.

So why call it Planetfall? The title is inspired by the first track “Last Train Before Planetfall,” which itself was inspired by a particular Loki episode titled “Lamentis.” In this episode, the Loki characters literally board the last train before a planet comes crashing down upon them, but the music of the Loki series was also inspiring, with its rich synth textures (composed and performed by Natalie Holt); it brought forth a creative burst of energy and I composed “Last Train Before Planetfall” over the course of a few evenings.

For the album artwork, I again turned to Artvee.com for public domain content that would align with my album title. One of the earlier pieces of art that caught my eye was Selene (1880) by Albert Aublet, in which I modified to look like this:

And the above image was a pretty solid choice for nearly 2 years (yes, that is how long this release has been planned), but then I discovered Question to the Stars (1901) by Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach.

This painting already had an ethereal quality to it and it seemed to match the theme of the other compositions I included on the EP (“Indulgence”, “She Lets Go” and “The Sprite Catchers”) and I only needed to add something to it to match my planetfall theme, so I simply added a planet in the distance obscured by fog and mist and came up with this:

The text layout and font choice, by the way, was done by my daughter, who will be pursuing a degree in graphic design next year.

The other great thing about this painting is that they came in a series, so I was able to select Capri (1851 – 1913) for the inside cover. Below is the original painting and how I modified it for the inside cover:

And the last painting in the series, I used for the back tray card. It is titled Asking the Stars (1851 – 1913). Below is the original painting and how I modified it for the back tray card:

The final thing I would like to point out is that between all of the images, I am trying to tell a story; the planet that the woman on the front is observing in the distance (the same planet being observed on the inside cover) is the same planet that the woman on the back tray card is located on, and she is observing back. Both are wondering what life is like on the other planet and will never know, and quite possibly, one planet will crash into the other. And we come back full circle to “Lamentis.”