I thought repurposing Master Controller Featuring elements for a J-MACHine track was some wacky shit (likewise with third-MACHine ones for a MCF track for that matter). This piece? This was built out of another MIGHTY-MACHine track attempt. And if you compare it to the demo for said track when the album drops, you'll probably be surprised at how little some things changed.

In what's been pretty much the usual story for tracks this year, I went into todays song with very little concrete idea of what I wanted; just vague ones like "A MIGHTY-MACHine song" or "a remix of this song". But after said MM track bit the dust, the idea to turn some of what I had into this moody piece for E.Q. gradually formed, and hearing the end result now it just feels so natural a direction for the song to've gone that I dunno why it didn't come to me sooner.

Soundtracking E.Q. has been on my bucket list of Music Projects I'd Love To Dedicate Time To, so any opportunity to do so I'll more then happily take. And hey, given 2016 was E.Q.'s fifth anniversary, what better way to close out the year's 12 Tracks with something explicitly E.Q. related?

I deliberately choose to keep the "story" of the song vague, but I think there's a definite one buried in the 03:42 runtime. To me, it sounds like something that ought to play on a cold, snowy December night in 23rd Century New York City, as Treble, Bass, Fade, Balance and Quentin get up to some sort of mischief.

ALSO also, this marks the first time I've used FL Studio in a finished track; the heavily altered/reversed strings that play in the intro were written in it, and then edited in Wavepad. I included the strings as they were written as a bonus track for the album, because this 12 Tracks is already loaded with bonus material so hey, what's one more song?

OH, yeah, some closing thoughts; this year was by far and away the hardest 12 Tracks undertaking yet. I struggled a lot with the initial planning stages of songs throughout the entire things- with a bad bout of depression and a sudden death in the family no doubt exacerbating that problem. It even lead to two demos going up in place of full tracks for days 7 and 9. Needless to say, that was far from ideal. On the flipside, the 10 finished pieces I managed to get out came out- in spite of everything- really damn good. I'm genuinely pleased with every single one. As per the norm, the 12 Tracks project has promised a tremendous amount of growth in my musical ability going ahead, and that makes all the stress and strain more then worthwhile.

Have a very merry Christmas, everyone. Hopefully this topsy turvey year ends on a high note.