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The Story Behind "The Lost Girl" album
Apr. 18th, 2021 09:32 pmAt some point about a year ago, I wrote a honking great post on here about my first Nightlights album, "The Crystal Mountain" giving a bunch of background information about it. It made sense therefore in a strange and mysterious way to do the same for my third album, "The Lost Girl." (Available from all good Bandcamps here!)
You might wonder why I conveniently missed out the second album, "Illumination." The answer is basically because although I'm perfectly happy with that one, the debut album and the third were both concept albums, and both released on tape. The second was not. So there isn't all that much I can really say about it, apart from that it took a long time thanks to some extremely troublesome neighbours, and therefore I don't have many good memories about the time spent trying to write it.
By contrast, following a house move back in late August last year, the change of scene and considerable change of neighbours made a huge difference. I forget exact dates, but the bulk of "The Lost Girl" was written within the space of about 4 months. After that, some delays were inevitable because I needed to work on the actual art for the album (more on that later) and save up the money to get the cassettes made, as well as waiting for them to be actually manufactured and so on. But the actual music? That took shape very quickly.
And yes, as mentioned, "The Lost Girl" is a concept album, much like the debut was, telling a story via the music, as if it was the imagined soundtrack to an imagined 80s animated film. I was really happy with the way the first album turned out, and had an idea for another "film" featuring the Nightlights mascot, Kiki, so it wasn't too difficult to form the outline of the story, giving me the song titles, and then taking it from there. Personally I think that these new songs have turned out better than the "Crystal Mountain" - which isn't to say I'm ticked off with that album, but I just think these ones are a stronger set of songs. At time of typing I've heard very little back about the new album, so people who brought it may well disagree, but I'm certainly very happy with how this one turned out.
With the artwork, again referring back to the "Crystal Mountain" I wanted an image that seemed like a typical 80s film poster. And although I'm happy enough with how that one turned out, it didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped - not quite close enough to the image inside my empty head. "The Lost Girl" cover image did take a lot longer to do, but again personally I think that it looks a lot more like an 80s film poster, and it is certainly much closer to the idea that I had in mind when I started work on it.
(On that note, the original title for the album was "The Lost Children" and although the cover art features Kiki and a snowkitten character of mine called Leana, Leana's twin brother was also going to be on the cover. I did actually draw and colour him, and for a while he was part of the image, but I wasn't all that happy with how the face turned out. Also, the cover just seemed a bit too crowded with 3 characters on there, so I trimmed the story down to just Kiki and Leana as the main characters, and changed the album title.)
I also should point out that anyone who buys a copy of the album from Bandcamp is given access to a PDF downloadable file, which is an 8 page little booklet thing that would have gone in a CD version of the album. In the event, no CD was made, as I couldn't afford to have a tape *and* CD done, and the tape won out. But at least the booklet can be downloaded if you buy the album, and it features some background information about Kiki and Leana, a bunch of new artwork (imagined stills from the imagined film) and each song title is accompanied in the booklet with a bunch of quotes from the imaginary film script.
Kiki, as mentioned, is the Nightlights mascot, and the booklet mentions that she is also able to time travel, by using a place she has access to, known as the Spirit Paths - a very beautiful but also very dangerous world, criss crossed with pathways that lead to portals to various times and locations. Kiki can more or less wander freely around the place, because she has a reputation at being more than capable of kicking butts with her magic. But the storyline for the album is that a young snowkitten girl from the 80s accidentally gets caught up in Kiki's portal spell, and ends up trapped in the Spirit Paths world. And for this young girl, Leana, that is bad news because there are plenty of evil creatures - including the particularly nasty Skiryks - that can use her as a means of getting into the "real" world. So Kiki has to help get Leana out of that alternative world and back to her own time, but to do so means journeying across parts of the place that even Kiki has never explored before.
It's implied in the booklet that Kiki is a bit of an enigma - there are rumours around that she is a demi-goddess, or a ghost, or that her task is to take the spirits of cats to "the other side" when the time is right. And to some extent all the rumours are right, and wrong. It also hints that she may have even created the Spirit Paths, or at least part of it, but why? Well... this is the problem with Kiki. The more you know, the less you know.
Leana may be recognised by a few people reading this, as I created her way back in the early 90s, and she surfaced in a fair bit of artwork, as well as my Snowkitten Kids comic for 5 years, and she also turned up in a book that I never finished writing. (Some of the chapters made it online, but have been deleted since, as I knew that if I ever did plan to finish the story, it needed a major reworking.) The story told in "The Lost Girl" isn't canon to Leana's own story, which is very different, but for many reasons I owe the character a lot, and therefore I wanted to include her here. The Skiryks also turned up in that ill-fated story, in a far darker form, (and appropriately enough, also known as "the lost children.") but I liked the name and wanted to use it for part of the album. So I did and things.
(One day I hope to return to that book and finish it, but as always, the music is taking priority for now.)
I think mostly the song titles tell the story reasonably well - the journey begins without too many problems, with Kiki and Leana working together to get past the various obstacles. But when they board a train, the Skiryks manage to force their way onboard too and although they attempt to kidnap Leana (with a view to using her as a means of reaching the real world) Kiki manages to distract them long enough for Leana to escape. In doing so, Kiki vanishes with the Skiryks and Leana assumes the worst. She's trapped in another world with no idea where to go, until a firebird, who was a friend of Kiki, helps her to make part of the journey. Along the way, Leana meets her future self, who knew this had happened to her in the past and had used her own (considerable) powers to travel there and tell her child self that she will be okay, and points out exactly where to go.
The only problem is that by meeting herself, Leana has inadvertently set "the collapse" going, because... well, advice to live by here - never meet your future self. It's just not the done thing. Luckily Kiki frees herself from the Skiryks and tracks down Leana, and during a final battle against the Skiyrks, she is able to force them aside and get Leana back safely to the real world where she belongs. They say a sad goodbye, and Leana asks if she'll ever see Kiki again, to which she tells her basically yes, but not till you're a lot older. Cue end credits.
(I'm still waiting for the phonecall from Pixar about turning it into a film. Any day now....)
So... there were a few spare songs, as also happened with the debut album. In this case, there are two songs already out as part of a single. One of these is called "Return To Mayari" and would have fitted in after the album track, "Forest Of Crystals." The other missing track is called "Queen Of The Ghost Cats" and would have been intended to fit in after "The Collapse Begins." They weren't included because the album was already just over an hour long, and it seemed there were enough songs already. If the album ever does get a CD release, they would be added back in at that point, probably. There are also another two tracks that weren't included for the same reasons, and those will turn up at some point soon on a single. Those were titled "Kiki's Wings" and "Keep Your Eyes Closed" and would have both followed the "Hummingbird Labyrinth" track.
I think that's about all I can really say about the album at this point, though of course thank you to anyone that has read this far through, and if you do have any questions etc, by all means ask away here or on Twitter, and I'll do my best to answer. However, if you have brought the album (and thank you very much if so!) then I can highly recommend downloading that PDF booklet I mentioned from Bandcamp, as the information and "film" quotes in there will fill in some more of the gaps. Probably. Maybe.
You might wonder why I conveniently missed out the second album, "Illumination." The answer is basically because although I'm perfectly happy with that one, the debut album and the third were both concept albums, and both released on tape. The second was not. So there isn't all that much I can really say about it, apart from that it took a long time thanks to some extremely troublesome neighbours, and therefore I don't have many good memories about the time spent trying to write it.
By contrast, following a house move back in late August last year, the change of scene and considerable change of neighbours made a huge difference. I forget exact dates, but the bulk of "The Lost Girl" was written within the space of about 4 months. After that, some delays were inevitable because I needed to work on the actual art for the album (more on that later) and save up the money to get the cassettes made, as well as waiting for them to be actually manufactured and so on. But the actual music? That took shape very quickly.
And yes, as mentioned, "The Lost Girl" is a concept album, much like the debut was, telling a story via the music, as if it was the imagined soundtrack to an imagined 80s animated film. I was really happy with the way the first album turned out, and had an idea for another "film" featuring the Nightlights mascot, Kiki, so it wasn't too difficult to form the outline of the story, giving me the song titles, and then taking it from there. Personally I think that these new songs have turned out better than the "Crystal Mountain" - which isn't to say I'm ticked off with that album, but I just think these ones are a stronger set of songs. At time of typing I've heard very little back about the new album, so people who brought it may well disagree, but I'm certainly very happy with how this one turned out.
With the artwork, again referring back to the "Crystal Mountain" I wanted an image that seemed like a typical 80s film poster. And although I'm happy enough with how that one turned out, it didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped - not quite close enough to the image inside my empty head. "The Lost Girl" cover image did take a lot longer to do, but again personally I think that it looks a lot more like an 80s film poster, and it is certainly much closer to the idea that I had in mind when I started work on it.
(On that note, the original title for the album was "The Lost Children" and although the cover art features Kiki and a snowkitten character of mine called Leana, Leana's twin brother was also going to be on the cover. I did actually draw and colour him, and for a while he was part of the image, but I wasn't all that happy with how the face turned out. Also, the cover just seemed a bit too crowded with 3 characters on there, so I trimmed the story down to just Kiki and Leana as the main characters, and changed the album title.)
I also should point out that anyone who buys a copy of the album from Bandcamp is given access to a PDF downloadable file, which is an 8 page little booklet thing that would have gone in a CD version of the album. In the event, no CD was made, as I couldn't afford to have a tape *and* CD done, and the tape won out. But at least the booklet can be downloaded if you buy the album, and it features some background information about Kiki and Leana, a bunch of new artwork (imagined stills from the imagined film) and each song title is accompanied in the booklet with a bunch of quotes from the imaginary film script.
Kiki, as mentioned, is the Nightlights mascot, and the booklet mentions that she is also able to time travel, by using a place she has access to, known as the Spirit Paths - a very beautiful but also very dangerous world, criss crossed with pathways that lead to portals to various times and locations. Kiki can more or less wander freely around the place, because she has a reputation at being more than capable of kicking butts with her magic. But the storyline for the album is that a young snowkitten girl from the 80s accidentally gets caught up in Kiki's portal spell, and ends up trapped in the Spirit Paths world. And for this young girl, Leana, that is bad news because there are plenty of evil creatures - including the particularly nasty Skiryks - that can use her as a means of getting into the "real" world. So Kiki has to help get Leana out of that alternative world and back to her own time, but to do so means journeying across parts of the place that even Kiki has never explored before.
It's implied in the booklet that Kiki is a bit of an enigma - there are rumours around that she is a demi-goddess, or a ghost, or that her task is to take the spirits of cats to "the other side" when the time is right. And to some extent all the rumours are right, and wrong. It also hints that she may have even created the Spirit Paths, or at least part of it, but why? Well... this is the problem with Kiki. The more you know, the less you know.
Leana may be recognised by a few people reading this, as I created her way back in the early 90s, and she surfaced in a fair bit of artwork, as well as my Snowkitten Kids comic for 5 years, and she also turned up in a book that I never finished writing. (Some of the chapters made it online, but have been deleted since, as I knew that if I ever did plan to finish the story, it needed a major reworking.) The story told in "The Lost Girl" isn't canon to Leana's own story, which is very different, but for many reasons I owe the character a lot, and therefore I wanted to include her here. The Skiryks also turned up in that ill-fated story, in a far darker form, (and appropriately enough, also known as "the lost children.") but I liked the name and wanted to use it for part of the album. So I did and things.
(One day I hope to return to that book and finish it, but as always, the music is taking priority for now.)
I think mostly the song titles tell the story reasonably well - the journey begins without too many problems, with Kiki and Leana working together to get past the various obstacles. But when they board a train, the Skiryks manage to force their way onboard too and although they attempt to kidnap Leana (with a view to using her as a means of reaching the real world) Kiki manages to distract them long enough for Leana to escape. In doing so, Kiki vanishes with the Skiryks and Leana assumes the worst. She's trapped in another world with no idea where to go, until a firebird, who was a friend of Kiki, helps her to make part of the journey. Along the way, Leana meets her future self, who knew this had happened to her in the past and had used her own (considerable) powers to travel there and tell her child self that she will be okay, and points out exactly where to go.
The only problem is that by meeting herself, Leana has inadvertently set "the collapse" going, because... well, advice to live by here - never meet your future self. It's just not the done thing. Luckily Kiki frees herself from the Skiryks and tracks down Leana, and during a final battle against the Skiyrks, she is able to force them aside and get Leana back safely to the real world where she belongs. They say a sad goodbye, and Leana asks if she'll ever see Kiki again, to which she tells her basically yes, but not till you're a lot older. Cue end credits.
(I'm still waiting for the phonecall from Pixar about turning it into a film. Any day now....)
So... there were a few spare songs, as also happened with the debut album. In this case, there are two songs already out as part of a single. One of these is called "Return To Mayari" and would have fitted in after the album track, "Forest Of Crystals." The other missing track is called "Queen Of The Ghost Cats" and would have been intended to fit in after "The Collapse Begins." They weren't included because the album was already just over an hour long, and it seemed there were enough songs already. If the album ever does get a CD release, they would be added back in at that point, probably. There are also another two tracks that weren't included for the same reasons, and those will turn up at some point soon on a single. Those were titled "Kiki's Wings" and "Keep Your Eyes Closed" and would have both followed the "Hummingbird Labyrinth" track.
I think that's about all I can really say about the album at this point, though of course thank you to anyone that has read this far through, and if you do have any questions etc, by all means ask away here or on Twitter, and I'll do my best to answer. However, if you have brought the album (and thank you very much if so!) then I can highly recommend downloading that PDF booklet I mentioned from Bandcamp, as the information and "film" quotes in there will fill in some more of the gaps. Probably. Maybe.
