Abysm

Something stirs in the depths. Its call demands an answer.

My first album, sort of.

Abysm is both the soundtrack to (an outstanding) Spirit Studios mod (which can be found here) and an audio portait of my life over the past many months. Over those months, I’ve been rather obsessed with the underwater music of Minecraft, and to a lesser extent Subnautica. When I had the opportunity to write the soundtrack for Abysm, I was excited to finally satisfy my urge to produce more music for this part of the world (after doing a bit for BlanketCon ‘25).

Song notes

Paddleboard starts us off. Inspired by a summer day (that I genuinely spent part of on a paddleboard), I had the urge to make something that makes you feel- even if not underwater, still joyful in nature.

Korallenflieder is the introduction to what’s under the depths. Originally made as a demo of sorts before development time begun on Abysm, it is notably not present in the mod itself (though it is one of my favourites!)

Wake was the first song I completed after purchasing Ableton Live. I had been on-and-off considering purchasing a ‘proper’ DAW for montths before this- but some business practices by BandLab were what ultimately made me jump ship from Cakewalk. This song makes use of none of my ‘regular’ instruments, as I composed and mastered this song entirely on my MacBook. I personally feel like it’s the closest I got to the Subnautica vibe.

Cichlid is the song of the Floral Reef. Meant to be playful and adventurous, the song feels almost like a triumphant battle? I got to finally make use of Bartok pizzicato in this song- something I had been wanting to do for ages before this.

Renaissance is the one and only disc in Abysm, meant to represent a time before the Deep Sea Ruins was… well, ruins. I tried to pull vibes from what I imagined as the typical ‘everything is amazing and okay’ sound. (sort of around the 80s?) Because I’m me, it also uses a bunch of orchestral elements. Actually, I don’t think any song in Abysm doesn’t.

Colossal Codecs is what the Deep Sea Ruins are today- while you may be first in awe of its majesty and scale, you soon realise its past is much darker than it seems. I’d say this is a good example of how I’ve used this project to properly learn mixing of strings/orchestral elements.

Abysm takes you even deeper. Gone are remnants of what’s gone- all that is left is the abyss. It’s the longest song I’ve ever made that has actually made it to release of a project. I also got to try some new choir sounds!

Tilapia is my favourite song from Abysm. Meant to be a general ‘emotionally neutral’ song for all places in the ocean, I think its odd time signature and “melody” makes is quite joyful. I also got to try out a new guitar-ish sound, too. You can also hear this in Antiquity!

No was composed and mastered in about two hours when I was creating a continous set of Abysm for release on YouTube. It’s meant to say goodbye to a project that has taken up quite a large place in my heart. I hope we can see each other again soon.

<3 lynndova