Let’s cover another iconic instrumentalist. In contrast to last post’s metal artist, we will now listen to one of the most gentle musicians, Derpidety. He has described his genre as indie rock or post-rock, and his inspirations are Explosions In The Sky, Bloc Party, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, and Modest Mouse. I personally feel his guitar play is reminiscent of The Shadows, but that’s just me. Besides guitar, he also plays piano, drums, and bass.

Derpidety’s presence on the ponynet stretches back to May 2011. Within a few months he started working on pony music. The Moon’s Ballad (called Luna’s Ballad on Bandcamp) was his first song, and it perfectly exemplifies his style: instrumental, nostalgic, calm, and sometimes unnerving. This song and the following are collected on the At Luna’s Gate EP: The Final Fall of the Lunar Empire taps into the Solar Empire vs Lunar Republic fan war, and tells the tale of the defeat of Luna. Dash’s Empty Sky brings forth the serenity of a certain rainbow-maned pegasus gliding through a summer day. (Fluttershy is) Chasing Rainbows is inspired by the FlutterDash shipfic Chasing Rainbows, and Lullaby for the Coolest Pegasi is a calming tune written for Dashie and Scoots.

As seen with Chasing Rainbows, one of his main sources of inspiration was fan fiction, specifically of the dark kind. Final Dreams of a Filly is based on an ancient sadfic called I couldn’t wake you, because you can never wake up again… (one of the few Derpidety songs with vocals). His next album, Lost in the Everfree, has the trilogy Derpy’s Journey, based on the fanfic Bubbles.

Other songs featured on that album are his cover of BBBFF, the warm but melancholic The Apple Orchard, More Than a Librarian—essentially a musical exploration of Twilight’s character—and Good Times at Flight Camp Are Over, whose first half is easy-listening and nostalgic, before turning slow and heavy. The latter is again based on a fanfic: Heart of Gold, Feathers of Steel.

He provided the background music for a short movie called A Little Shy, about someone finding a Pinkie Pie figurine and being bullied over it. Like many things of the early fandom (and today still), it’s quaint and sincere.

Derpidety was closely involved in the fandom. He participated in Toastbeard 18 with his entry Gray Octave, a dreadfully somber piece that you just want to fade away to. He contributed to Kiki’s Cancer Fund Album with Harmony Return It. This fundraiser, meant to help find a cure for a very ill girl, is a controversial story in and of itself. In any case, if you bought the album back in the day, you’d have gotten a version with vocals, though I haven’t been able to find a trace of this album online. He’s also visited (and performed at) a few conventions: Everfree Northwest 2012 and BABSCon 2014, of which we’ve got this live version of Dash’s Empty Sky.

Closing off the enumeration of songs, we’ve also got Soarin Wonder, a chill electronic song, and a relaxing guitar piece called Dreamshy, as well as some remixes: Me and the Royal We, a cheerful remix of a Luna song by Apple Applekations (original seemingly lost), and Scratch, an up-tempo electronic song originally by DJ Poniver. He also worked together with Poniver on Sweet Angel Scoots.

As with many artists, there came a time where he wanted to branch out. He changed his name to Kind Tide, and made more non-pony music. Summer’s Over was still produced as Derpidety, and it really deserves a mention. For almost 6 minutes it jams to the ephemeral feeling of late summer, when the cold air picks up and evenings become dark sooner than you realize. If you enjoyed that, I’d also suggest Kind Tide’s [M]Other and Empty Morning. But as for Derpidety, those days may be over.

If you want to explore his recent stuff, check out his YouTube and Soundcloud.

Songs you should definitely check out:

Azure
A duet with Zatslol, from Lost in the Everfree. This is an unusual, but beautiful Rainbow Dash song. The singer is thinking about Dash flying through the skies, and longs to fly with her. He sees Rainbow’s grace, but also notices her more troubled side, stoic but insecure. It’s an angle that wasn’t much explored in the show, but brilliantly enriches her personality.

Final Sundown
Stargazers was a project consisting of Derpidety, Whitetail (aka DJ Derpy Hooves / WherewolfTherepony) and an uncredited female vocalist, who appears to be Rina-Chan. They only released this one song: it’s about Celestia, and how her long life filled with problems and painful decisions has left her worn out. It’s smooth listening, with a bittersweet flavour.

Dash’s Echoing Sky
We’ve discussed Dash’s Empty Sky before—this is the same song, but with vocals added. The lyrics are written by a friend of Derpidety’s and reflect innocent youthfulness, and the wish for those golden days never to go away. The vocals were done in a single take, but I still enjoy this version just as much as the original.

– DuxTape