Oh boy. What to tell about “Landscape Fantasy”?

“Landscape Fantasy” may seem like just another upbeat track at first listen, but beneath its melodies lies a world of inspiration and introspection.

Also: chance was an important factor in this journey like it often is in my music.

You can listen to the song here.

It began in the autumn of 2023 by me listening to one of my most beloved composers, Claude Debussy. His impressionistic piano pieces, such as “Clair de lune,” have always enthralled me.

Debussy found his own spark for “Clair de lune” in French poet Paul Verlaine’s work – and I decided to follow his lead. Verlaine’s 1869 poem “Clair de Lune” paints a scene of a moonlit journey of soul-searching amidst singing and dancing figures in a charming landscape.

Yet, under the picturesque surface, there’s something. A sense of unease.

Indeed, when I read the poem myself I felt as if it was actually about the presence of some dark forces lurking within the idyllic countryside, perhaps echoing themes from the Symbolist poetry movement Verlaine embraced.

The symbolists saw that the purpose of art was not to represent reality but to access greater truths by the “systematic derangement of the senses,” as Arthur Rimbaud described it. The symbolists favored dreams, visions, and the associative powers of the imagination in their poetry. 

What these contrasting elements did in me was that they sparked a memory and I remembered Anne Rice’s “Vittorio,” where an Italian Renaissance countryside idyll similarly conceals a terror.

And how striking would “Landscape Fantasy” look as a music video diving into such an historical world where beauty holds a dark secret!

Then, as the song took form, 1980s childhood memories intruded and I recalled “Jem and the Holograms“, the cartoon about the colourful and exciting music group by the same name. I borrowed their larger-than-life glamour and characters began to appear in my mind that shined with a similarly dazzling edge.

Now I knew how the main characters should look like!

But what kind of characters would look like that?

Since I was listening to a lot of AI technology podcasts during this time, a concept captured me.

What if behind the glitz and synths weren’t human entertainers but recently self-aware android performers? And that those androids were waking up to the realization that caused an existential crisis?

Suddenly I pictured Las Vegas -style dystopian near-future party city, where robots performing under the haze of neon twenty-four seven were the targets of their inebriated audiences’ desires and violence, because… hey, robots, so who cares?

I’m pretty sure this image came from the memory of the shopping mall scene of one of my all time favourite movies, Blade Runner (1982).

But if that was the music video, what part should I play?

Oh I know!

Backstage there’d be a technician looking after the robots, preparing them every night to soldier on despite the toll – himself only able to grasp the glittering facade of their lifestyle through VR spectacles.

So he, too, would be longing to experience what the androids do but would forever remain on the other side of the proscenium because of his looks, age or… organic nature.

I was satisfied with this. Here I’d have several ideas to work with should I ever produce a music video or go on stage with “Landscape Fantasy”.

And whaddya know: there are several AI-powered video story board services out of which I used one to create a sample storyboard.

Musically, given the danceable direction I wanted to take “Landscape Fantasy”, George Michael’s “Fastlove” became one reference to pass on to the producer for the tempo to shoot for.

But there are a lot more, which you can listen to on my “The stage is ready” Spotify playlist!

Yet despite everything else, the foundations of my song remained that initial first bar of Debussy’s Prelude to his “Suite Bergamasque.” I may have wandered down many mental avenues but sonically that remained the cornerstone.

At the time I had no means to realise any of my ideas written above so for the promotional videos, I decided instead to focus solely on manipulating visuals, using the resources I had.

So I borrowed a beamer, designed some contrasting geometric patterns and animated them with Canva to enhance the atmosphere to create a hazy, glitzy, and psychedelic vibe to match the music.

Through that I also found a certain 1960s vibe to the videos that was unexpected. You can check them out for example on the “Landscape Fantasy” visualisation video or in Instagram with the hashtag #pplanfan.

So, there really is something for everyone in the end result, or, to put it in another way: the song could develop to any of these directions and at this stage it’s interesting to keep the options open.

Finally, “Landscape Fantasy” reflects that core question I’m exploring on the album “Player Characters” from beginning to end – What lies within the duality of even the most sparkly things? How thin is the line between wonder and decay?

I wanted a track that caught the ear but left minds wondering if and why the beautiful is often slightly broken?

Is it?