I created this “nuclear” composition as part of my learning process with a music software program called “Strudel REPL.” Half of the composition and the opening melody were created using the music coding features of this program. The process involved creating C# code that is set to music by the program and can also be controlled manually. By that, I mean that the entire composition and its melody were created as an improvisation. I recorded the voices you hear in the track myself, and the ambient announcement at the beginning of the track is a recording made directly from a university audio studio, where a lecture was taking place at the time (I recorded it with a spatial microphone). The piece also features a sound I created and named “teethbreaker”; it repeats in the background as echoes and is sampled to the rhythm of the piece’s progression. The sounds of so-called “traffic cone chewing” that can be heard throughout the entire track are also my voice, without any Auto-Tune. I recorded this sound on my phone in my college dorm while cooking dinner, and later decided to incorporate it into this track using Strudel REPL. In addition to coding the music itself, I then created a slow beat that evokes a heartbeat. The goal was to create a similarly rumbling beat like the one found, for example, in the song “Lesik” by the musician Tomáš Dvořák/Floex. This heartbeat intensifies, and stronger thuds and rattles are added to it, symbolizing the disintegration of atoms. To evoke a greater sense of radiation in the track, I enhanced certain passages with noise-like hums. To emphasize the role of the character called “Capitan BluRay”—whom I conceived while composing this track—I decided to slightly modify the track so that the “feasting on cones” repeats like a stuck CD or Blu-ray, and the “teethbreaker” sound is something like the sound emanating from Capitan BluRay’s disc.
