Constraint is the second single released under alpha.zero and the first collaboration project between 1oolm and Stretched Across Infinity.

The single was released digitally on Bandcamp on August 15th, 2023, then on 5 other streaming platforms on September 3rd, 2023.

This release is preceded by 1KIJE^3 and followed by tomorrowcave.

Trivia

Personal Experience: 1oolm

Background

Inspiration struck in the evening of July 29th. Here are the exact words from my draft writings that started the track idea:

1oolm - Constraint
Hardcore-ish(?) track about my own (cringe as fuck) interpretation of my situation with being cut off from my friends in multiple ways, and being completely different from others, not having anything good to call "my own" but still fending for myself

...won't show any more of that as it is complete and utter embarrassment. I was a little sad that day.
I felt inspired by Ophidian - The 909 Track, which is, in my opinion, still an absolute marvel of creativity.

Production

I started the main Constraint project the very next day, on July 30th. You can listen to the first ever snippet of the track here:



Dire. Yeah. I know the end result isn't that good either, but nevertheless, this does demonstrate a "trust the process" mentality. I managed to pull through and continue working on something that sounded like THAT.

After that, work started going pretty quickly. As the calendar turned, (July 31st) I finalised the first drop and made the piano breakdown part. I just felt like making a tempo-automated breakdown. That's what came to mind.
A fun fact is that the melody I now associate with Constraint, doesn't even originally come from Constraint. It was originally written for Breakbeat Lynne, a track for the now scrapped X Cubed EP.
Have a snippet of that:



Frankly an alright track for February 2023. Can't even bring it back now, because the amount of Constraint is above the norm as it is. I digress.
Okay, it turns out, and I completely forgot, that July 31st? I kinda did everything that day. I spent 10 hours on and off, 1-11PM, bumping the total runtime of the track from 30 seconds to 2.5 minutes. Y'know, never seen that kind of focus from myself before. I really was passionate about this.
The track was basically finished besides minor quirks by August 2nd. Doing research for this retrospective, I'm shocked. I've heard from other hardcore producers that if an idea really is good, you'll be able to get 'er done quickly, but I've never truly experienced that prior to this. Of course, it later happened with Eyewaltz, but that's way after this.

Have some fun facts!

• The hi-hats in the drops are actually the same 909 kick used in the intro, just messed with a lot.
• The weird synth-ish FX used prominently in the intro and first drop is a really distorted version of the frenchcore kick heard in the intro. This marks the only time I've used FL Studio's Hardcore plugin. Never accidentally add it to a mixer track.
• The kick comes from a sample pack by Invasion of Chaos. Much love.

Collaboration

---

Oh, Mallory, you little...
I brought them on the track since they're my friend, and they make music. Not many people fit that criteria, so I wanted to give it a shot.
Of course, it went about as awkwardly as you'd expect two teens thousands of miles apart to. I had zero experience with collabs, neither did they.
I decided to keep the load low, and simply let them make an outro. It fits their ambient style. So, from August 1 to release day, I was persuading them for input on the matter. It felt so awkward, I wanted to dig myself a grave right then and there.
Lots of things played into this delay. Timezones, internet connection, forgetfulness, all that. We wanted to use Satellite Sessions to try an actually live collaboration experience, but internet issues meant uploading stuff took ages, and timezones meant we couldn't get enough time for ourselves to sit down together and do things.
August 6th: I get sent an ambient song they were working on. This is where the Stretched Across Infinity alias was born:

i was brainstorming shit
came up with something related to echoes
and then i thought of paulstretch
and then i thought of stretched across infinity

I liked the song a lot, and proposed the idea of simply using a part of it as the outro, since I was recognising that we weren't going anywhere chasing a specially made part, and this was good enough.
I get the greenlight, and slowly iterate on the outro as the days come and go. By August 15th, I sent the third iteration of the outro, and asked if it's good for release. It was.

Does a ~20 second part sampled from a person's song even count as "collaboration"? Maybe the real collab was the friends we made along the way.

Release

me and mas were browsing furaffinity at the moment i announced the release
A little dumb to say, but I miss these Bandcamp releases. I could simply upload audio, and have things ready in a heartbeat. That's in contrast to nowadays' streaming releases, working with a distributor with their own delays.

Reception

Some friends liked the track.
As of writing, this track does not top any charts or win any awards, except for "song with most sentimental value". Like, seriously. I play the melody almost every time I test an instrument, and I get a vivid look into life back then. That's reaching for too personal of a territory though.
The cover art was supposed to represent a heart being chained up with constraints, hence the faint X-shaped lines, sort of resembling chains. But all the sentimental value of the track makes my brain completely ignore that initial vision. It's a heart. It's a memory.


This track is where I started many traditions, including organising my work folders, saving old exports, and generally preserving media. It pays off well, as I managed to actually talk about things now.

- March 7, 2024

This work is licensed under the CC-BY-NC license. Do what you want, credit the work and artist(s), and don't make money off of it. If you want to monetize the usage of anything here or you have any further licensing inquiries, contact our email and we can figure something out.