Band Name and Track List

Today the group decided on our band name and track list.

Band Name:

After looking over our previous ideas, we decided to develop them further. We started combining words that we liked in order to form a name that was more complex and exciting. On the left is our brainstorm. We decided on the name 'Cθmpound 98' with the first 'O' being replaced with the Greek letter 'theta'. We were inspired be other indie artists 'PVRIS' (below left) and 'CHVRCHES' (below right), who have both replaced letters in order to appear more unique, as well as to avoid confusion online with unwanted search results (of Paris, France and churches respectively). We discovered that searching the term 'compound 98' online returned scientific results due to the word 'compound', by replacing a letter we would avoid this issue whilst also making our artist stand out. To make the band name more personal, we added '98' to it, 1998 being the year that each member of our group was born.

Track List:

We used a word generator to provide us with ideas and starting points for our track list. We wrote down words that we liked and combined them and eliminated options until we were left with twelve that we liked (right). We changed the name of our song 'Hypnotic' to 'Evection'. Evection is the irregularity in the moon's motion caused by perturbations of the sun and planets, perturbations meaning deviation of a system from its regular or normal state caused by an outside influence. We found that this was very fitting as our song explores themes of hypnotism (changing state) and the narrative of our music video is a girl feeling lost and crazed as a result of her overwhelming love for someone (the outside influence), she is trying to escape her regular life.

We also decided that our album will be called 'Noir', meaning 'black' in French. We feel that this reflects the dark, mysterious personality of our music video's protagonist. We wanted this element of darkness and mystery to be recurring throughout our album.

Our track list is as follows:

1. Serenity
2. Control
3. Ancient Visions
4. Evection
5. XVII
6. Ammunition
7. Bed of Shadows
8. Fix
9. Monochrome Witness
10. Amnesia
11. Lost Spirits
12. Cerebellum

Ideas of darkness are shown through the titles 'Bed of Shadows' and 'Monochrome Witness', linking in with our album title 'Noir' as well as further showing the mysterious personality of our protagonist. We wanted our track list to create a journey, representing the mental state of the character in our music video. Her lost yet reckless demeanour and her longing to escape her regular life is presented through the titles 'Serenity', 'Control' and 'Lost Spirits', we wanted these calmer titles to juxtapose ones like 'Ammunition', which is very aggressive, and 'Fix', which has drug connotations, hinting at her reckless personality. The title 'Cerebellum' is also very fitting with this theme as it is defined as the part of the brain that coordinates voluntary muscle movement, linking in with ideas of escapism and running away.

Generating Ideas - Band Name and Track List

Today we started to think about what our band name could be, as well as possible ideas for our track list. We used a word generator to provide us with starting points on which to build our ideas, I feel that this was a very useful tool to use as we found it quite difficult to think of interesting words ourselves. We were looking for particularly striking words as we want our band name to be unique. We took note of words that we liked which also sparked our imaginations and allowed us to think more creatively, we began to combine different words to create song titles. I feel that we have plenty of interesting words that could be used for song titles, however, we haven't decided on a band name yet.

Word generator

We also had to think about what we could rename our chosen song, 'Hypnotic'. It proved to be quite difficult to think of an original name as 'hypnotic' is such a prominent phrase in the song and an ideal title. A word that stood out to us when using the word generator was 'evection', which means irregularity in the moon's motion caused by perturbations of the sun and planets, perturbations meaning deviation of a system from its regular or normal state caused by an outside influence. We thought that this was quite fitting as the character in our music video is 'deviating' from her regular life, her overwhelming love causing 'irregular' behaviour as she tries to escape. We also liked the idea of having an oxymoron within the title, for example, 'Blanc Noir', meaning 'white black' in French. I feel that this represents the character's inner conflicts, her mediocre life and her desire to escape, her calm side and crazed side. I feel that this juxtaposition helps to create confusion, emphasising this theme within our music video.



Words obtained from the word generator

Brainstorming ideas