Storytelling through music is a concept I’ve always held in high regard. When developing ideas on what my university final major project would be, a story was always at the core of every concept. I've always loved art that can portray a story, whether that be through emotional and theoretical representation or literal and prominent narrative. As a musician, I had to find a way to tell a story throughout my work, while still being a cohesive piece of artwork whose quality isn't diminished by its format.
With music as the main focus, the story was written to complement the music, rather than the music being restricted by the story. The narrative’s format needed to be engaging but non-intrusive. ‘Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds’ was the main inspiration behind the album's structure. Similarly to Wayne’s album, my project would contextualise setting and action through narration and voice acting. This album also proves a great example of how music and narrative are balanced without straying into audiobook and radio drama territory. I wanted my project to encourage mental visualisation, where major plot points are explicit but smaller details are open to personal interpretation. The story needed to be easy to follow; the music should be the main focus. Diegetic and ambient sound effects were ruled out (with exceptions) to let the music drive the action. In creating a more interpretive visualisation of the characters and strengthening the ‘easy to follow’ idea, names were absent, replaced by their role in the story (e.g. ‘The Father’, ‘The Scientist’...). To complement the compositional sonority, the setting chosen was a technologically advanced dystopia, similar to movies like ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Akira’.
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