Weeklybeats is a 52 week long music project in which artists compose and publicly release 1 song a week for the entire year.
Starting January 1st 2024 GMT each participant will have one week to upload one finished composition. Any style of music or selection of instruments are welcomed and encouraged. Sign up or Login to get started or check our FAQ for any help or questions you may have.

WeeklyBeats.com / Music / Cosmic Cairns's music / This Used To Be The Future

This Used To Be The Future

By Cosmic Cairns on November 10, 2020 9:26 pm

I was sort of having a chain of related but different thoughts about time.  I was thinking about how whenever you listen to a recording you're actually listening to the past.  Then I started thinking about how it's fun to have things to anticipate, but eventually those things happen, and then they just disappear into the past.  Then I started thinking about how 2020 used to sound like such a far-flung almost sci-fi futuristic year and it's almost over.  I mean we're like 5 years past when Marty McFly travelled to the future in Back to the Future II.  I remember watching the movie 2001 as a kid and THAT sounded like an unimaginable futuristic year and we're almost 20 years past it now.  And I'm sure that when my grandparents were young, the year I was eventually born sounded like a super futuristic year.  It's just the nature of the beast.  We're riding in a train called the present and it keeps turning the future into the past.  Anyway this is a mostly synth based instrumental with a touch of bass, guitar, and vocals, some of which were run through a vocoder.  I was kind of sleep deprived when I did this one and I thought about doing it later, but then I was kind of curious if sleep deprivation would have any noticeable effect on the recording process.  I'm not sure if it did or not, other than I felt kind of crappy while doing this, although it also distracted me a bit from how crappy I was feeling.  So in that regard it was interesting.

Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial (BY-NC)

Man I love the way you make this feel like a journey through your own sense of time. Cool sounds, nice work!

oh lord, this is heavy shit. All your thoughts about time are really worth dedicating a song to. I felt narcoleptic and was drifting in a parallel world while listening and did not wanted to reentry the past, what was the future now, when the song finished. The vocals reminded me of gravenhurst, a band I like a lot. well done, sir

I was really surprised when vocals and guitars did kick in. This track sounds good, very nice trip to the present-past...

hent03 wrote:

Man I love the way you make this feel like a journey through your own sense of time. Cool sounds, nice work!

Thanks!  I'm glad the sense of a journey comes across.



Q-Rosh wrote:

oh lord, this is heavy shit. All your thoughts about time are really worth dedicating a song to. I felt narcoleptic and was drifting in a parallel world while listening and did not wanted to reentry the past, what was the future now, when the song finished. The vocals reminded me of gravenhurst, a band I like a lot. well done, sir

Thanks!  Time is certainly something I find interesting.  I don't suppose it would be possible to experience anything without it, but it's also crazy how fast it seems to go.



djippy wrote:

I was really surprised when vocals and guitars did kick in. This track sounds good, very nice trip to the present-past...

I wanted to mix up the soundscape a little, but hopefully not in too jarring of a way.

This was a trippy adventure to listen to.  From the instrumental intro to your bassline/guitar and vox.  Cool outro as well!

Tone Matrix wrote:

This was a trippy adventure to listen to.  From the instrumental intro to your bassline/guitar and vox.  Cool outro as well!

Thanks!  Glad to hear a sense of adventure came across!

Far out.

There's always 2021.

Devieus wrote:

Far out.

There's always 2021.

Here's hoping 2021 is a good one.



emily wrote:

Thanks for the awesome gif!

Sweet man!  There's so many cool parts/effects in here, I love it!

Chrisfoo wrote:

Sweet man!  There's so many cool parts/effects in here, I love it!

Thanks!  I sort of had the main melody that I used on the vocals in advance and everything else just sort of came into being through exploration.  It was cool to see it come together.

Love this "We're riding in a train called the present and it keeps turning the future into the past." - This is good train riding song. Always like reading your descriptions. Time sure is weird. I guess it has to be when you're on a moving train. Lots of good stuff in here, wow, those vox at 2:30 ish are lovely. Cheers to the next stop on the ride. 

miraclemiles wrote:

Love this "We're riding in a train called the present and it keeps turning the future into the past." - This is good train riding song. Always like reading your descriptions. Time sure is weird. I guess it has to be when you're on a moving train. Lots of good stuff in here, wow, those vox at 2:30 ish are lovely. Cheers to the next stop on the ride.

Thanks!  Speaking of trains, I've heard time actually moves slower for people who are on trains (or other fast moving vehicles) than it does for people who are just standing on the ground.  Time really is weird.

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Captain Sisko is asked about the continued feeling of loss and suffering he feels at the loss of his wife several years ago. When he's asked repeatedly if time is linear, he says "obviously." Near the end of the episode, as he continues to relieve the experience of loss and have those feelings, he recognizes that the past can also be the present. His trauma is not linked to time, but to him.

Anon_Buster wrote:

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Captain Sisko is asked about the continued feeling of loss and suffering he feels at the loss of his wife several years ago. When he's asked repeatedly if time is linear, he says "obviously." Near the end of the episode, as he continues to relieve the experience of loss and have those feelings, he recognizes that the past can also be the present. His trauma is not linked to time, but to him.

Oh yeah.  I watched the whole series of DS9 for the first time about... gosh... I think ten years ago now?  Anyway, I don't remember every last detail now, but I do remember Sisko having trouble getting past the loss of his wife.

Awesome write up.  Sorry you weren't feeling well, the 2:00 pitch bend break kind of sounds like nausea to me.

The concept of time is so crazy to me.  Like.........does it even exist????????????

orangedrink wrote:

Awesome write up.  Sorry you weren't feeling well, the 2:00 pitch bend break kind of sounds like nausea to me.

The concept of time is so crazy to me.  Like.........does it even exist????????????

I kind of forgot I wasn't feeling so good when I did this one.  I feel better now.  It was just a momentary thing from not getting enough sleep the night before.  Yeah, I'm super fascinated by time, too.  What is it exactly?  Is it an imaginary construct?  Does it really only move in one direction?  Why the heck does it keep speeding up the older I get?  And why does it move so slowly when I'm doing something boring or miserable that I just want to be over?  There must be some aspect of it that really is based on our own personal perceptions and that's fascinating, too.  Is it subjective and not objective?  The questions never end.

You need to login to leave a comment.
Login Sign-up