Area 11

Cassandra Rising [Downloads]

Added 2019-01-31 19:22:11 +0000 UTC

Today marks the 6th anniversary of the release of our first album All the Lights in the Sky, and to celebrate it this year we've done something we think is quite special.

In a break from our SINGLARITY project, we're releasing an EP of music we've been wanting to create for at least 6 years: Cassandra Rising. It's the soundtrack to the first episode of an anime we'd make if we ever got the chance, and an idea we had way back when we were making ATLITS in 2012.

Please download the EP which is attached to this post, and read along as you listen, as we're going to try to explain the scenes the music would accompany.

01 Cassandra (pt I) [Person:A]

Meet Aiko, a young girl living in Tokyo. She is engrossed in editing a video on her laptop. Her room is dark and untidy, the mood cold and foreboding. She is illuminated by the florescent glow of her computer's screen. The video she is editing is a music video, we can see it is from an artist called Cassandra. Slowly, she falls asleep sat at her desk as rain begins to fall outside.

02 Cassandra (pt II) [Digital:Haunt]

This is the intro to the anime. If that wasn't obvious.

Still, although it doesn’t really matter now
I can’t believe it, that I got so far
I got so far behind, my love
You use me and I use you
I, your savior; you, my muse
The best friend that you’ve been to me
But I wanna be your enemy (I wanna be your enemy)
You stare at me with omnivorous eyes
You want a reaction, want a reaction
You wear a red dress when you’re in a bullfight
You’re drawing attention to your double life

In dreams, I’m coming to find you
And when I wake I want anyone else
'Cause I don’t love you
It’s what I’m telling myself

This was the moment, this was the place
This was the night that everything changed
I’m hiding from you, hiding from you
Hiding from you 'cause we are the same
We’re not just numbers, we are alive
A digital haunt in an analogue life
I’m hiding from you, hiding from you
Hiding inside you 'cause we are the same

Wait, just wait for me and I’ll come around
Pack up, log on and we’ll leave this town
And we’ll run around and live in secret worlds
And say our secret words
And I’m still encrypted, I am a machine
The ego behind this computer screen
My best friend that I’ve never seen
I turn you into my enemy

“No, it’s all in my mind,” I feel
I should save myself, before this gets too real

This was the moment, this was the place
This was the night that everything changed
I’m hiding from you, hiding from you
Hiding from you 'cause we are the same
We’re not just numbers, we are alive
A digital haunt in an analogue life
I’m hiding from you, hiding from you
Hiding inside you 'cause we are the same

03 Cassandra (pt III) [Aiko:Unknown]

The next day, Aiko is tired from staying up late working. She travels to her school, taking the train. She seems numb to her surroundings, barely noticing her brother and father at breakfast and hardly acknowledging the other commuters on the train.

Arriving at school, people are discussing the new video from Cassandra, the anonymous Internet popstar, unaware that their unpopular classmate is her alter ego. Aiko is invisible to them, a background element, an extra. She is called up to do a presentation to her class about her hobbies, but she has forgotten to prepare anything. She panics and runs out of the classroom.

04 Cassandra (pt IV) [Unus:Nulla]

We rejoin the story much later. Aiko has been accidentally locked in the school, and it is now evening. She follows a mysterious boy into a deserted classroom. When he tries to talk to her, she can't understand what he is saying, and he seems to disappear into thin air as bright lights illuminate the windows, dazzling her. All at once, the glass is blown out of the windows and many large mechanical arms enter the room, knocking over desks and smashing into the walls and ceiling.

Aiko dives to the floor, but is picked up by one of the arms. She screams and an electrical discharge explodes from her body, making the arm recoil and dropping her. However, although it appears for a moment that she is free, a second arm swiftly attacks her, impaling her through the chest. It pulls her dying body through the broken window, revealing a huge mechanical monster, which eats her.

05 Cassandra (pt V) [In:Florescence]

After waking up alive and well in her bed the next morning, Aiko finds that the school is intact. She meets the mysterious boy again, and that evening they speak together online. He has somehow figured out that she is Cassandra, the first person to guess, and over the course of an evening's conversation they grow closer.

06 Cassandra (pt VI) [Re:Match]

We rejoin the story as Aiko faces off against the mechanical monster in the school again. Although she is initially beaten back, this time she discharges an even greater electrical power, which she is slowly starting to be able to control, and she seemingly destroys the monster.

07 Cassandra (pt VII) [Re:Set]

The outro.

Connecting stream
Through secret cities in my mind
Sometimes I catch the dream
But then I’m pulled inside
And I can’t get out
From worlds of light and rain, no I can’t get out

Take in the night
Through my window, such a trip
Maybe I’ll change the whole world
Into a paperclip
But I don’t get out
From worlds of light and rain, no I don’t get out