more about skipping church to play phantasy star

the album art for my skipping church to play phantasy star album. the silly christmas tree with ornaments is still up some seven months later. the ikea leaves photo returns. i wanted something that captured the aura of laying on the carpet with the natural light coming in the windows on a weekend morning playing phantasy star online.

i’d been in quarantine for a few months, working from home, and playing a ton of phantasy star online. i’d been playing on the ultima server and putting quite a few hours into it. it was a safe place to retreat from the world into.

the music of phantasy star always created memories of laying on the off-white carpet in front of my 13” CRT television set. i kept with my style of tarnishing hymns and used several for the inspiration for these tracks. each one is named after a zone in phantasy star online. in each track i tried to mimic sega genesis era music, what i might have composed for a sega game were i a composer in the 90’s.

i didn’t want this project to be as ambitious as my other ones, and i think the result was a pleasant snack of an album. something calming to listen to, but no real bangers as they say.

the album art is a photo of a silly christmas ornament we found at target, and the same ikea leaves photo i’d taken and used in the previous album art. i think i mixed these as though i were making a riso print. i forget if i ever actually made that print or not. it was around christmas 2020 that i made this album, and christmas was certainly on my mind.