Keegan Tawa Shares Track-By-Track For New Narrative Album “Startide”

Philadelphia producer and songwriter Keegan Tawa teamed up with a number of local musicians to create his futuristic and imaginative album Startide. With Tawa on production, saxophone, keys, and the Armenian woodwind instrument the duduk, his band includes Philadelphia-based orchestra members Elizabeth Steiner (harp), Chris Castellanos (French horn), Dan Kassel (cello), and Qin Qian (erhu – a two stringed Chinese violin), along with jazz musician Logan Roth and vocalists Sophie Coran and Zach Kramer.

The group effort combines the cinematic powers of string instruments with the modern soundscapes of synthesizers, Startide takes listeners on a intergalactic journey, intended to be experience as one unbroken listen. Tawa shares, “The album tells the story of two characters, one of whom must leave the other on a one way journey into outer space. Startide uses space travel and time dilation as allegorical tools to discuss leaving someone you love, and what can follow”.

Tawa, who has a background in jazz and engineering, uses rhythmic patterns and motifs to create a range of emotions to complement the handful of lyrical chapters written by Myles Billard. Deeply rooted in the world of science fiction, the new electronic album gradually builds into an epic tale soundtracked by the moving and detailed musicality. As the protagonist’s journey from Earth becomes more and more challenging as time passes, Startide‘s intensity follows suit as it pushes its own set of musical boundaries.

Tawa adds, “During a time in which live music isn’t feasible, I think [it] is a wonderful way to enjoy the euphoria and energy of Electronic Music while also arriving at a moment when people are able to stay home and appreciate a more contemplative musical experience. I believe that now is the perfect moment for Startide”.

Get lost in the story of Startide below and read through the album’s track by track for insight on its story and process, as well as information on the exclusive illustrated vinyl pressing available through his Kickstarter.

Stream below:

Track by track:

1. Startide is the opening scene of the album, where the two main characters are spending their last night together on Earth.  This track features Sophie Coran on vocals, and her character ruminates about all of the questions she hasn’t asked her partner before leaving on what will be a one-way trip into space.  She and her partner are on the shore, looking out across both the ocean and the sky.  Sophie refers to this shore as “The Silver Shore,” which has relevance later in the album.  The choice of a shoreline was very deliberate: Myles and I used a lot of nautical imagery in Startide, to the point where the lyrics actually allow Startide to be a nautical journey instead of a space journey, if you just imagine it differently in your mind’s eye.

2. Flight is Sophie’s character’s initial departure from Earth.  The track is supposed to be filled with excited energy and forward momentum, representing Sophie’s character being enthralled at the start of her journey, and enamored with the prospect of a new adventure.

3. Fantasy Sidereal is early in the journey, at which point the main character is totally overcome with the fantastical beauty of outer space.  This piece involved recording with Logan Roth (keys) of Trap Rabbit and Jack Zaferes (bass).  It contains some of Startide’s very few instances of improvisational play, during Logan’s piano solo and my saxophone solo.

4. The Moon pans back to Earth and visits Zach Kramer’s character, who has been left behind.  His character also has a number of questions for Sophie’s character that he never asked, and now wishes he could.  This is embodied in some of Zach’s lyrics, where he directly mirrors Sophie’s lyrics in song 1 (If you only knew what I never asked of you).  This song is also where we first introduce Time Dilation into the story (My Heartbeat grows old, your heart beats anew).  Zach’s character recognizes that Sophie’s character will begin to age differently in outer space, moving at extreme speeds, and he begins to acknowledge the repercussions of this: the reality that he will grow old and die while Sophie’s character remains young.  He makes one final desperate attempt to reach Sophie’s character, (Am I coming through to you?) but of course it is far too late.

5. Time Passes is the end of act 1, and represents the disjoint passage of time for the two main characters: a lifetime, for Zach’s character, and only a brief interlude for Sophie’s character out in space.  Death in this album is symbolised by the Duduk, an Armenian flute, which makes its first appearance in Time Passes to hearken Zach’s character’s death.  Dan Kassel joins this piece to add a sensitive layer of cello.  The asymmetrical aging in Startide is symbolic of the way we remember people we love but have parted from.  Often times when we look back on those we loved, we remember them as young, we remember the brightest and fondest moments of our time together, and remember them in a perfect, crystalized, youthful form Even though we know they have aged with us, our memories of them have not.  This is metaphorized by the fact that Sophie’s character really is just as Zach’s character remembers her: still young, just as she was when she left him.  Even as he ages and grows old, Sophie’s character is still the youthful person of his memories.

6. The Siren’s Call is the start of act 2, and features Sophie once again, alongside Elizabeth Steiner on harp, who leads the second half of the piece.  It also features the textural sounds of Luna Maye’s crystal bowls.  In The Siren’s Call, Sophie has become lost in  deep space and has begun to feel both doubt and fear.  The Siren’s Call is the flipside of “Flight”‘: it is meant to capture some of the ominousness and openness of leaving everything you know behind: the sense of swimming over extremely deep water.  Nonetheless, Sophie’s character is compelled and drawn deeper out into space by a strange lure she can’t quite understand (The Siren’s Call).  This piece reinforces Startide’s nautical subtext.  In the illustrated tracklist, a supplement which can be obtained by purchasing the record on vinyl, we also are first introduced to the black hole that Sophie’s character will eventually visit – perhaps the black hole is The Siren.  

7. Superlight Overture is a high-energy, high-impact piece meant to embody the intensity and thrill of moving near light-speed.  Realistically, this is probably where Sophie accrues the time-dilation that separates her in time from Zach’s main character.

8. The Stars Watched is a lonely and remote piece intended to capture both the overwhelming beauty and also the total indifference of outer space, and the universe at large.  Despite the human tragedy unfolding before their very eyes, The Stars look on, cold and indifferent to the fates of humans.  In the illustrated tracklist, Sophie’s character’s spacecraft can be seen only as a tiny point of light, carving a trail across an ocean of stars, intended to convey her smallness and ultimately her inconsequentiality in the eyes of the universe.  Qian Qin performs an Erhu solo on this piece.  This is another one of the album’s very few moments of improvisation.  

9. Love Survives is the piece in which Sophie’s character, finally overcome with regret, isolation and loneliness, chooses to pilot her ship into a black hole, in the hopes that in whatever lies on the other side – an afterlife, a parallel reality, a fortuitous quantum-everett branch – she might be able to be reunited with Zach’s character once more.  For this reason, the main character describes the other side of the black hole as a “Silver Shore,” an allusion to her last night with Zach’s character in song 1.  Alternatively, the main character simply dies a vain and useless death: the lyrics are meant to sound more than slightly indulgent and self-centered.  Sophie’s character is not a protagonist.  In part, Startide is a rumination on suicide.  The entire record takes place beneath the shadow of the fact that the main character’s journey is a one-way trip, both in space and time.  The main character’s choices are meant to be heartfelt but also at least a little bit vain and selfish, because to those left behind on Earth, somebody’s suicide can feel that way (whether or not it should).  

10. On Silver Shores is the aftermath, the point at which point no characters remain.  It is the second appearance of the Duduk, to hearken the main character’s death.  The duduk is joined by Chris Castellanos on French horn.  The title, On Silver Shores, is an allusion to both song 1, where Sophie describes the beach on which she spends her last night with Zach’s character as “These Silver Shores,” and also song 9, where she refers to the (presumed) other side of the black hole as a silver shore: “On Silver Shores, we dance forever more.”  What actually happens in song 10 is the decision of the listener.  The song has no words, only the finality of Sophie’s death, signalled by the Duduk.  Perhaps the two characters are reunited on their Silver Shore – or perhaps they are both simply gone and dead, their story swallowed up by the universe and forgotten.  In the illustrated supplement, it is clear which ending the artist, Ana Novaes chose.  I tried to make Song 10 feel like a lullaby, a soft and gentle and comforting end to a turbulent journey.  Even if the album ended tragically, whatever happened, it’s all over now.

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