SECRET VOICE OF HUMANS

Promising yet not fully developed, like the young voices it reveals, this track shows a sneak peak into themes used later on as well as the chance to hear the diverse voices of the ‘choir’ of invisible voices of mankind while they accompany us in our journey through self observation. It also prepares for a sense of wonderment to anticipate some of the content to come later on.

Nothing would be possible for humans without the means to communicate and coordinate with each other. By oral tradition, written texts, morse or binary code, ideas spread virally and sometimes even become entities of their own, so quickly it escapes our control. This track covers the marvel of written communication; it starts with someone writing a letter (lines are passed from instruments to voices and viceversa) and ends with the addressee reading said message while having a cup of tea.

More: The sound design includes all and any means of communication: talking drums, ink writing, chalk scribbling, reading, typing, pigeons, the turning of pages, discarding of papers, morse and binary code. A light version of Stupid theme appears when messages disseminate dangerously unsupervised.

Building on the previous track, the passing of time (Chronos theme) sees how a cluster of individual ideas inevitably give a distorted birth to others at an increasingly faster rate, until such a point is reached where there is no control nor stopping possible to this accelerated expansion (Stupid theme, inevitability).

This loss of direction out of not thinking, of allowing things going too far too fast and not having a more global view is highlighted at the end of the track, which recovers a ticking bomb feel before an open question, anticipating the dire consequences that are to come.

We can take a man to the moon but we can´t control death, that sometimes interrupts the work of passion of a lifetime and others simply takes someone you love away, and with it your understanding of the world crumbles.

This is the personal tragedy of our human limitations. From the realisation that we are alone to the devastating effects of losing someone whose life ends before yours. This is the sadness of losing someone, the void it leaves behind and how it sucks all warmth away leaving only an intimate sense of being depleted of all energy and will.

More: A fight of high and low strings torn between remembering and forgetting in the messy process of grieving.
Sonically, human voices which sing familiar tunes fade away as an individual dissappears and is substituted by strings, and no more voices are heard. There is only absence.

We don´t fear sabre tooth tigers anymore, but many things that still make us shake. Things we think we hear in the night.

A track rich in sound design to address all those irrational fears we still have in the dead of the night, when we are alone with our thoughts. Darkness understood as the oppressive anguish felt when things are out of our control, the ultimate vulnerability and disorientation experienced when our primitive animal fears still take over as we somehow see our self preservation threatened and light and comfort are nowhere to be found. The voices that echo in our heads reminding or anticipating anything and everything that might cause us harm.

More: It depicts an empty road, a car driving in the night. A driver alone with his / her thoughts, which soon turn into toxic patterns. Cruel laughter ridiculising and belittling us hide in the rain and thunderclaps, as behind every threat of the natural world there lies the toll that past voices of other humans has taken on us.
The cave dripping effects, the wild animals (hissing, growls, etc) are all made by human throats.

Humans are ticking bombs, and our worst enemy. This is war.

Sound wise, the howling and summoning of troops and elements of war depict the process of dehumanising and how the brainless mob drags the individual’s rationale, when everything is engulfed by the war machine. The tingling bells that in previous tracks stood for special connections between humans now transform into cold coins; humans descend to animals, an alligator growl morphs into an airplane gear.
Finally, true naturalistic sounds appear and a bomb is dropped, leaving nothing but silence behind.

More: In Homini Lupus nothing much is what it sounds like. Across the track, only one howl comes from actual wolves and there are almost no sounds from real conflict or war. For example, there are only one gunshot and one real explosion; the sounds of people screaming come from yelling at the stock trade and market; some bombs and distant ‘gunshots’ are actually fireworks. Most importantly, it´s not children crying; it´s baboons

A formless, cold horror.

After the disaster, the ear ringing opens a desolate soundscape that goes from unreal to really dark and desperate with moments of disbelief and disorientation, like the numbing sensation of those whose been struck by disaster. The only voices come from ghosts voices and ashes in an industrial desert dominated by electric buzz and radiation grit. The hour is growing late, the tick tack of the clock ages slow and heavy and changes its tone when announcing the end to come (somber Stupid theme).

More: some echoes of words can be understood: lacrimosa mortis (weeping, of death). The natural rainsticks heard in previous tracks are electric now, as it is now acid rain

There is loss because there was love.

This track resumes the more personal sequence from A Lifetime Is Not Enough, finding a gentle hope of meeting again, of laughing again, of finding a connection and purpose once more. The joy of having fully lived outpowers the weight of all previous loss, and change and evolution can become tools for a brighter future once more if what we know from our past makes shift direction.

More: The voices emerge once more from the strings, as life comes back again to the most desolate of places. Like the comfort of finding an old picture, or recalling a familiar melody from the back of the mind and finding joy in it again. Clocks this time join the soundscape with a gentler acceptance, and more mellow ‘tickles’ of tiny bells find us again for a final toast and although some scars remain, hope and trust in what will come are strong

If we learnt from our mistakes, all we´ve gone through, what would be possible? Is a reconciliation between what we don´t understand or control and ourselves achievable? If so, how would it respond to interdependence?

The human choir that has accompanied throughout the soundtrack finally merges with Chronos(Time) in a proposal that blends every single distinct aspect explored in previous tracks (as well as most of all previously used music ideas).
Providing closure for the album, this track connects back to Tiktaalik but incorporating a review of all the concepts seen so far, the different voices and how they can coexist together when the total is more than the sum of the parts.
At the very end, the last voices slowly disappear until only a single heartbeat remains.

More: This is a musical ecosystem that is supported by the marching army of Homini Lupus; the talking drums from Spread The Word, the clapping hands and main lines of Tiktaalik, the heartbeats of Afraid of The Dark, and numerous other fragments from other tracks. One part collapses without the all the others