Aside from ridiculously high quality production and sound design, Vylet Pony has a knack for relating to the world of Equestria and the creatures within it. Her connection to the show is poetically romantic as demonstrated through her concepts and music. can opener’s notebook: fish whisperer is the story of a neurodivergent unicorn going from overachieving marine biologist to aspiring musician after relocating to a quiet cabin on the Yakyakistan coast. Featuring lots of sudden track change-ups, full soundscapes, a prevailing theme of “you are/aren’t a real musician“, and so much more, every song is immersive into the coastal atmosphere and risky yet fulfilling nature of Canni (the protagonist).
Concept albums have a storied place in this fandom, and Elias Frost is no stranger to going all-in on telling a great story. Recreating and expanding on his Stories Vol. I album from 2017, Elias uses brilliantly composed orchestration to tell the expanded story of Hearth’s Warming. The tale begins with the night before Princess Platinum’s official coronation as ruler and goes all the way through the events of the Hearth’s Warming story. Each track tells a chapter in the tale, and is encapsulating if you read along with the soundtrack! A few of the standout tracks are teased after the break below!
Bedtime StoriesPrologue is the opening track on the album, and it starts off soft and mystical, growing into a joyous fanfare, and fades out with a soft, folkish atmosphere – foreboding stories to come.
Sky Legio: While the pegasi ignore Princess Platinum’s coronation ceremony (there’s no cider), the mighty tribe are busy fighting off storm clouds to keep the joyous skies clear. This track portrays adversity with powerful, war-like percussion while pairing the struggle with soaring melodies expressed through the wide array of orchestral instrumentation.
Terra Nova: The penultimate track takes us from the illusion of new peace to the reemergence of the Wendigos in an apparent ice apocalypse to the realization of how to save all of ponykind. Great orchestration is displayed in the early joyousness and bright melodies, followed with a fluid transition to sudden terror and solemnity.
Brilliant albums with high-quality production and professional-level composition don’t come out very often. Compound that with how Elias clearly thought through each track so carefully and you’ve got a must-hear masterpiece!
If you haven’t checked out DustCar yet, it may be worth your time to join the Discord server where every two weeks they host a songwriting competition open to everyone as a way to encourage musicians of every skill level to challenge themselves to create something musically. Over the course of 2021, Brambleshadow4 made several contributions to the competition and combined them into The Scraps album which showcases a variety of genres ranging from a singer-songwriter style of just ukulele and vocals, to heavy chiptune, and even a live Christmas remix from TrotCon! This album is a great example of how the DustCar community challenges its participants to try different things in their music as well as grow through the experience!
Right after Christmas, Skyshard dropped this huge, immersive album offering an extended look into their dystopian, Equestria Girls world. Though fully instrumental, The Borderline tells the story of a scientist working in a dark future where he finds the truth behind the shady workings of the tyrannical mega-corporation. The album as a whole explores lots of different styles to the synthwave sound and switched back and forth between melodic and often optimistic tracks versus emptier, more barren soundscapes. Every track is distinct form the last, and it is easy to tell each song is written with a specific purpose in mind as it relates to the story! (continued after the break)
Melochromatic Sunset: The first song on the album does a great job imprinting a large, dismal world and industrial turmoil at the heart of it all. The synth work is both excitingly melodic and heavily burdensome when it needs to be. The attack on the instruments perfectly establishes the oppressive feel of the landscape, especially in the deep, echoing drums.
Numbers: About halfway through the album, this track may catch you off-guard. Among a patch of songs defined mainly for their slower, emptier and more pessimistic atmospheres, Numbers sticks out for its flashier melodies and rhythms which are highlighted in the synths and give off an impression of hope in what has been a largely harsh environment.
The Other Side: The penultimate track on the album really brightens up with flashy strings, bright synths in the background, and quicker, more energy-driven melodies. One of the longest songs on the album, this track paces its message well through differently styled sections which all build beautifully through layering instruments as the piece goes on.
There are a whooping 42 songs included in The Borderline, so it is definitely encouraged to get the full album on Skyshard’s bandcamp, for the wholly immersive and incredible experience!
Okay. I probably don’t need to introduce you to TCB (If you’d like a proper introduction, may I recommend this beautiful compilation album?). All you really need to know is that this artist is one of the foremost practitioners of sound design in the fandom, that no one gets more out of a vocal chop than they do, and that emotional and psychological subject matter is their forte. Now they have given us a whole album of finely calibrated tracks, the product of 10 years of pushing boundaries and redefining sonic excellence. Your musical mind is in the hands of a master, so find a quiet place, break out the good headphones, sit down, strap in, and do your best to absorb everything that is about to come your way. It’s going to be a heck of a ride.
You can always count on Thrasher to deliver intense excellence, and here they have created an entire album’s worth of awesome, hard-charging music based around a fantastic concept! A hacker is trying to save society from the malicious clutches of the “desync reality”, a virtual world that promises salvation but instead exploits its inhabitants. The album follows the unnamed protagonist’s progress by delivering song after song of inventive and merciless metal encapsulated in finely crafted tracks that meld fierce guitars and traditional metal arrangements with electronic components through dynamic progressions. It fits the theme perfectly, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did. I’ll give a rundown of the songs next, so please join me below the break if you care to. Either way, go grab this album and get rocking!
Sometimes an album comes along that resonates with my musical soul and forces me to really soak it in. This is one such album, and it takes me back to my early days of finding personally meaningful music on the internet. A big genre for me at that time was trance. There’s something uniquely emotional and energizing about the genre, and it’s so wonderful to be reconnected with it as I have been here. Regardless of whether you think of yourself as a trance fan or whether you continue reading this article or not, YOU ABSOLUTELY OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM. The songs are ridiculously amazing and are chock full of pony goodness. Seriously, go get it now, and if you want to hang out with me in the rundown below, then come on back, but at the very least GET THIS MUSIC and then give the amazing creator behind it a big ol’ hoof bump, because they deserve it. Thank you from the bottom of my musical heart. ❤
One Track Mind is an artist who is continually focused on improving and evolving their music (they recently remastered all of their previous releases!), and this EP is a wonderful example of that. The artist celebrates an oft-revisited motif in its original form and variations, and each one is a full-fledged attempt at something new. It’s honestly no wonder they keep coming back: the original is packed with great melodies and progressions which it continually morph and distort in interesting ways, creating an engrossing soundscape that glitches and buzzes with insistent energy before echoing to a close. The “Repetitive Remix” opens with contemplative keys and drifts through the motif before a fantastic bassline and skittery percussion give the song a futuristic groove. It sounds like something that would play over the opening credits of a sci-fi thriller! “Reprise” bubbles to life over synths and percussion with a nice retro vibe that gets more distorted before a heavy bassline kicks in, creating a nice juxtaposition with the lighter melody. “Ends” starts heavily distorted and drenched with reverb but still feels light; it fades out but then bubbles back to life with a dark groove punctuated with distorted keys. The arrangement lightens at the end and gives the track a more triumphant feeling before it echoes and fades out. “Sunday” has an ethereal quality courtesy of its keys and choir, adding a distorted bassline and light, snappy percussion before building into a fuller arrangement. When it does, it positively springs to life: the melody swirls and builds, and then the now-familiar motif returns in awesome, chippy, scratchy fashion, creating an uplifting, atmospheric progression. It feels triumphant, like reaching the plateau on a long climb, knowing that there’s more to come but being satisfied with the journey so far. Then, just to remind you that this is the artist’s party and they’ll do what they want, the track switches things up at the end, careening to a close like a twist ending in a movie. Kudos to the artist for their inventiveness and for putting this fantastic EP together. To the continuing journey, my fellow musical adventures!
Hello, everypony, and welcome to this amazing undertaking of fandom creativity and goodwill! It’s always special when artists come together for a good cause, and this album, created in part to raise money for the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch, is an amazing effort by the members of Dustcar. More information on the ranch and album downloads are available through the Bandcamp site, so please check that out and support everyone involved in this project. The artists all created songs with the goal of making a song that’s “something that holds a bit of yourself in it”, and it shows in how much heart is in these tracks. Please go grab the album and get ready to experience some exceptional exploits of equine excellence!
Welcome one and all to a truly auspicious event: The latest installment in the My Little Remix series! For those that don’t know (which included me before this album), MLR began in 2011 when the pony music scene was absolutely exploding as a way of pulling artists together into a more cohesive community. There have been nine albums featuring some of the best talent of their respective times, and though the creative mayhem of the early days has come and gone, the songs that those artists and others who took up the horse music banner produced left an indelible impression on the fandom music landscape. What a wonderful delight, then, that the time-honored tradition of remixing has returned for yet another glorious compilation of fandom talent! This album is a really fantastic musical journey full of lovingly produced music, and it is my absolute pleasure to introduce you to its track along with my co-conspirator, Simon. So go download the album, kick back, and join us in this beautiful appreciation of horse music achievement! Also, how great is it that the tracks are labeled “befriends”? Whomever came up with that deserves a hearty huzzah! Alright, let’s get into it!
Horse Music Herald 