Humanity - Chapter IV (人文:第四乐章)
第四章在音乐风格上相较于第三章发生了剧烈的转变。它将带你踏上一段关于科学与人类探索未知心智与物质之无尽渴望的旅程，伴随我们探索宇宙的浩瀚、我们家园——地球及其上每一个生命之美。专辑的第一首曲目《Space for Rent》，我试图创作一段音乐，传递出在太空中漂浮的“家”的感觉。我们的家园——地球，给我这种感觉。双脚踏实地面让我们感到安稳，然而在大气层这层薄纱之外，我们完全暴露于一个神秘莫测的未知之中，而我们才刚刚开始探索和理解它。第二首曲目是对1969年登月及著名的阿波罗11号NASA火箭的致敬。《Rocket to the Moon》是一首完整的管弦乐礼花式作品，描绘了太空旅行的紧张激烈。紧随其后的是《Cruising in Space》，一段由Merethe Soltvedt献唱的、有趣的交响金属旅程。这是Merethe有史以来演唱过最具挑战性的曲目，因为我最初是用合成器音色创作的主音部分，在录制完管弦乐部分后，我突发奇想，发给她这段音乐，想看看她能否触及那些高音。令人难以置信的是，她做到了，于是最终我们得到的，像是一首外星人（由Merethe演唱）与未来派合成器之间的二重奏！当然，还有完整的管弦乐队、合唱团、吉他、鼓以及我所能塞进（及塞不进）的一切作为伴奏。这首曲目还有一段小桥段，我们称之为“UFO间奏曲”。此外，我们变换节奏，进入我创作的一系列“元素”曲目。《Made of Air, Fire, Earth and Water》这几首曲目，将专辑中多样的音乐风格——从旋律性的前卫流行（《Made of Air》）到复杂的合唱与电子作品（《Made of Fire》）——粘合在一起。广为人知的曲目《One Million Voices》是本章的核心，代表了处于文化多样性中的人类。在《Please Don't Go》中，我想在音乐上重现我们在经历失去或爱人离开时所感受到的那种彻底绝望的感觉。这种感觉可以被描述为一个不分青红皂白地摧毁我们存在结构的黑洞。随着失落感变得愈发真实和难以承受，焦虑感不断增长。这是一首创作艰难的曲目。为了创作它，我决定让一位女性在整首曲子中发出沉重且越来越快的呼吸声，并在结尾处以催眠般的方式重复“我爱你”的声音。专辑以《So Small》结束，这是一首对我们在此宇宙中存在感的赞美诗。当我们看着自己在太空中一颗行星上旋转，而这颗行星与宇宙其他部分相比是如此渺小时，我们的生命显得如此渺小、微不足道。然而，对我们来说，这就是家园，是我们真正知晓的一切。Chapter IV makes a hard shift into totally different musical territory than Chapter III. It takes you on a journey of science and mankind’s insatiable hunger to unravel the unknown of mind and matter as we explore the immensity of the universe, beauty of our home: Planet Earth and everyone on it.With the first track of the album “Space for Rent” I wanted to create a piece of music that had a feeling of home floating in space. Our home, planet Earth has this feeling to me. We feel safely planted with our feet on the ground, yet beyond the thin veil of our atmosphere we are fully exposed to a mystifyingly great unknown which we have only just begun to explore and understand.The second track is a tribute to the 1969 moon landing and the famous Apollo 11 NASA rocket.“Rocket to the Moon” is a full orchestral firework piece which depicts the intensity of space travel, which is then followed by “Cruising in Space”, a fun symphonic metal journey featuring Merethe Soltvedt. It is THE most challenging track Merethe has ever had to sing on, as I wrote the lead part originally with a synth sound and after recording the orchestra for the track I had the idea to send her the track and see if there was any way she could possibly reach those high notes. Unbelievably, she did, and so what we ended up with was a sort of duet between an alien (sung by Merethe) and a futuristic synthesizer! And of course the backing of a full orchestra and choir, guitars, drums and whatever else I could fit (and not fit) into it. The track also has a little bridge which we call the “UFO interlude”.Furthermore we have a change of pace into a series of element tracks I wrote. “Made of Air, Fire, Earth and Water” are tracks that bind the variety of the album’s many musical styles together, with genres of music ranging from melodic progressive pop (Made of Air) to sophisticated choral and electronic work (Made of Fire).The already well-known track “One Million Voices” is the center piece of the chapter and represents Humanity in all our cultural diversity.With “Please Don’t Go” I wanted to recreate musically the feeling of complete and utter despair we feel as we experience the loss or are left by a loved one. The feeling can be described as a black hole that indiscriminately destroys the fabric of our existence. An anxiety that grows and grows as the feeling of loss becomes more and more real and unbearable. It was a hard track to make. To go about creating this I decided to feature a woman breathing heavily and increasingly rapidly through the length of the piece, and the voice “I love you” repeated in a hypnotic way towards the end.The album concludes with “So Small”, which is a hymn to our existence in this universe. Our lives seem so small and insignificant when we look at ourselves spinning around on a planet in space that is tiny compared to the rest of the universe, yet to us it is home, and all we really know.
