Author: Spectra

Spectrahe/him · bri'ish · a music hors · co-founder of the Horse Music Herald · amateur translator · italian cuisine enthusiast
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Indie Notes – Under Equestria’s Skies | Album | Acoustic


As I said the other week, Indie Notes may have been away from the music scene for a while, but that was only in preparation for this – his debut fandom album, entitled Under Equestria’s Skies. The album overall is very chill and mellow, with the main composition made up of an acoustic guitar and Indie’s Voice, although it does feature a couple of other instruments every now and again for additional melodies. But that doesn’t hinder the songs at all, in fact, stripping back a performance to this level is often a great way to put the songwriting back into the spotlight instead of technical skill*.

The themes covered vary too, from the happy-go-lucky vibe of Change of Place, to Spike’s longing for self-discovery in Waiting, to the bleak lyricism in Survive. If you like acoustic music in any shape or form, you’re going to love this little collection of six songs from one of my favourite up-and-coming acoustic artists in the fandom.

Under Equestria’s Skies is available to purchase on Bandcamp for $6 or alternatively, if you’re attending Ponycon in New Jersey this weekend, you’ll be able to get your hands on a physical copy!

*Oh, and don’t get me wrong, that aspect is still important, but perhaps sometimes overshadows other parts of creating music. I appreciate the different angle this album brings.

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[P@D] Night Crow & Thrasher – Back To Ourselves | Trancecore

Well this was a pleasant surprise. Night Crow and Thrasher last teamed up on last year’s Awakening from the Ponies At Dawn collective, and now they’re back together again for Amity. Here, synths meet guitar once again, with beats and arps reminiscent of (what I remember off the top of my head of) early 00s trance.

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Ponytronic – Repose | Trance

It’s trance, but not necessarily as you know it. Here, Ponytronic seems to blend a couple of different styles of the genre – on one side it’s got the uptempo beat of uplifting trance, but also the chill and melodic elements of the kind of music I remember from artists such as SoaringFlight. Overall, a good combination, check it out trance fam!

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[P@D] Totalspark & Sonitus – Embrace | Chillout / Synthwave

I’ve noticed a trend in Totalspark’s recent tracks to play around with interesting chord patterns, and the progression in this does something that I always love in music. Sparky explains it himself in the video description, but it essentially resolves to a major chord at times when it’s in a minor scale. And I haven’t even got started on the arps, the lead, and the vocoded vocals, there’s just so many great layers of sound in this track that all mesh together brilliantly!

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Morgsch – Let The Sun Rise (Neighsayer Remix) | Chillout / Lounge

Here’s one if you’re in the mood for super chill stuff. Neighsayer has appeared plenty of times on previous P@D albums with fantastic live instrument production from jazz to blues and alt rock which my ears just melt into. Now they bring something even more smooth and mellow than usual with this remix of Mogsch and Itchigotchi’s Let The Sun Rise (albeit minus the vocals).

The Seapony Orchestra: A Brony Orchestra Project

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Yeah…that post from the other night? Let’s just ignore that and read this one instead. The Seapony Orchestra, a group of musicians based in South-East Asia, are planning a performance at SeaPonyCon in Bangkok this August, and are looking for more musicians to join in! If you’re in the Asian community or even keep slightly up-to-date with this, then you may have already heard about this, but hey, signal boosting never hurts. Have a copypasta below on the details…

Continue reading →

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[P@D] Plum Creek Rhythm Section – Handbag (covering Replacer) / Dashtortion – Through The Snow | Alt. Rock

Two more P@D songs for you today! First up is this rather mellow cover of Replacer’s song Handbag done by Plum Creek Rhythm Section – so a combination of two artists whose songs on the P@D albums are consistently some of my favourites. And the intro totally doesn’t remind me of The Pretender…

And to follow, a new track from Dashtortion, which isn’t actually a solo artist, but instead a collab between StealingShad3Z and SlightlyAmiss, whose work you may remember from the last P@D album. A bit more uptempo, but still relatively chill (haha see what I did there) song with Shining Armor / Cadence themed lyrics.

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Vylet – Little Dreams (Homage Remix) | Electronic

Clearly the SPW hype hasn’t worn off for Homage, as he’s recently released this nice little remix of Little Dreams. The trap and future influence in the sound design here, and some unique vocal processing and chopping stand out in particular for me on this track.

Note: Since the original video got deleted, you may find the MP3 file of the song here.

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[P@D] ExplodingPonyToast – Skywards (Reverbrony Remix) | Metal

For those of you who have been following the P@D albums for a while now, EPT’s song Skywards might ring a bell. Well now we now have a metal remix (something I only seems to see on compilation albums) of it from Reverbrony. It keeps up the tempo of the original while bringing a whole new soundscape to which the chords and melodies are added.