nightingales. (n.) - a cinematic concept EP about a community of outcasts who fled (or were exiled from) a hostile city to build their own sanctuary in the wilderness
and the steps they take to reclaim what was taken from them.
demos
i’m developing this project out in the open. below are the most current versions of each of these songs.
Nightingales: Track 1 of 4
the nightingales invite a new member into their number.
What You Say In Your Sleep: Track 2 of 4
the nightingales infiltrate the city with a plan
Emberlight: Track 3 of 4
the nightingales regroup after defeat.
Black Ties: Track 4 of 4
the nightingales enact a plan.
about the project
we follow the nightingales across four tracks.
we begin in the wilderness with the title track: their manifesto, their offering of shelter to the broken and wounded.
in what you say in your sleep, they infiltrate the plastic, polished city on the inside of the huge gate with a plan: to expose the city’s leader, a tyrant masquerading as a holy man.
in emberlight, they lick their wounds in the aftermath of their attempted operation around a campfire. they share their stories of spiritual abuse and realize that their faith belongs outside of the city gates.
in black ties, they return to the city for one final operation: a heist to tear down the regime once and for all.
devlog
7/1
okay everything’s in roughly v1 shape (except what you say, which is a bit further on down the line).
the next one i’ll be focusing on is emberlight, i think. it feels like the second single i want to drop.
black ties is in decent shape, but i think i’ve sort of struck the tone i like in what you say, and it’s going to inform what the rest of these end up sounding like. so it’ll be third, and then the last will be nightingales. it needs to go somewhere after this heavy part, i just don’t know where yet. it needs to lead better into what you say.
6/29
i think i’ve found what i want the album art to be like. it took some tinkering, but it’s at least heading in the right direction.
6/26
tracked a lot of vocals today for what you say. i’ll start versioning that one out. i’m not going to alert every time i upload a new version, don’t worry.
6/7
banged out a lot of guitars for what you say. i mean a lot of guitars. sort of hit a flow state with it.
there’s one part where i tune down to c#, so if i ever play any of these live, that’ll be an interesting problem to solve.
5/15
i’m pretty happy calling this the official v1 for black ties. i will be polishing it later, but for now i just need to kind of move on.
5/1
okay you’ll notice black ties that i just uploaded is in “v0.5,” which i hope is kind of self-explanatory. i need to:
1. do some proper guitar retracks;
2. program drums;
3. uh, write an ending that i don’t hate.
4/10
fine we’ll call this a v1 of emberlight. i need to move on. but this “v1” is tentative—in the final version i’m going to bring in more instruments after what you hear now, write a proper instrumental, then finish on a huge chorus that can transition us to black ties.
2/9
i’ve sort of abandoned this. i got busy. sue me. i’m gonna dive back in, starting with emberlight, i think. i want to make sure i tighten up what’s essentially the project’s ethos before i build out some of the others.
2025
9/20
instagram videos for early versions of nightingales and emberlight are out, but i have ideas for what i wanna do with the other two. you’ll see i’ve named them, but i haven’t tracked anything yet. sorry.