cool and new volume 4 - Commentary cool and new volume 4 - Commentary
cool and new volume 4 - Commentary cool and new volume 4 - Commentary
Album released 7/2/2026.
4.8k words across 54 entries.
cool and new volume 4 cool and new volume 4 (album commentary) Listen on: Bandcamp
no things besides re mains
cookiefonster ✑ Booklet Assembler
Happy tenth anniversary to the Cool and New Music Team! Or technically, happy tenth anniversary to the team's first album, since the team was founded on June 18, 2016. We released volume 1 on July 2, 2016, and since then, we've done several anniversary albums: 9 for our first anniversary, Volume 3 for our fifth anniversary, and now Volume 4 for our tenth anniversary.
Even though Volume 3 was meant as a final album for the team, all of us agreed it'd be a good idea to do a brand new album for the tenth anniversary. All of us also agreed that I'd be the one assembling the booklet again, although I put that off until a few days before the album release. Then in those final few days, my brain refused to let me work on anything other than this booklet and the remaining track art for this album.
All of us on the team are very proud and excited to present this new album, and I can promise you we have more CANMT projects coming up later this year.
pktgrillao ✑ Cover Artist
I live next to the beach. It's been a clear inspiration for me and it's an integral part of who I am. That's why it's one of the things I could portray even with my eyes closed. And... about what the art itself means? I took a good look on how Volume 3's cover portrayed an ending, and I thought that I could do a good continuation off it. How? Making a parody of the ending of The Planet of the Apes where Jhon did not escape, but instead travelled to a future where the CANMT is back in full force, which is now.
In the Beginning Listen on: Bandcamp
I believe this was the first song ever made for the album. We started talking about a potential comeback album way back in August of 2023, so that's how old this track is. I think I wanted to adapt one of my most iconic CANMT motifs (although this motif in particular is more popularly known as CONTACT, arranged by Difarem/DeltaPsi) into an emo-pop type song that I'm more known for writing now. Now that it's almost 3 years old, it honestly sounds dated again, but it's a fun tune and the chorus is one of my favourites I've ever written. Even though there is an audible MIC POP you can hear when I sing "pieces.“
I wanted to make track art that calls back to the early days of the team, back when most of us were high school students learning how to make music for the first time. The piano roll plays the melody of the original In the Beginning, and the calendar includes the dates of the first few CANMT albums.
Mo' shi Mo' Problems Listen on: Bandcamp
This track started out as an attempt to write a song in the style of Pendulum. I had nearly all the synths selected and a fair bit of mixing done before I even added the melodies and riffs from Moshi which is kind of an absurd way to try and write a song. Surprisingly, Moshi seemed to lend itself really well to the style, so I'm quite pleased with the result. Despite how long it had been since I listened to the original track, I still adored Moshi as a motif. It really just tickles that part of my lizard brain that likes hype things, so it was an easy choice for a song to come back and do a cover of.
I wanted to draw CANMT-tan. I really, really wanted to draw CANMT-tan.
Disharmonize Listen on: Bandcamp
koba ✑
I made this song back in 2023 as a remix of a song I made in 2016 as a way to show how far I came since making music way back 10 years ago at this point. At the time there were no plans for the team to ever be revived or come back, and it was mostly just a pipe dream of mine to put out another album sometime. I'd like to think this song let me actually spearhead the idea of making this album, and bringing the team back as a whole (even if this song is definitely still dated lol i could definitely do better if i scrapped the whole thing and did it over now compared to 3 years ago)
Jungle #4 Listen on: Bandcamp, YouTube
Jungle #4 is a song that I had wanted to make for many years, to continue the series of Sburban Jungle and Another Jungle by Michael Guy Bowman, and Jungle #3 by me. CANMT volume 4 gave me that push of motivation to do it, and to make my first piece of music that's not a chiptune nor an edit of existing video game music in far too long! The last such song I made I believe was The Fifth World from a 2018 CANMT album.
I struggled for the longest time to decide what the song should actually sound like, until one day on the way home from work I started humming a repeating riff to myself, and filmed myself singing it using my cell phone so I wouldn't forget it. That riff would become the opening of Jungle #4. Then the rest of the song came together piece by piece over the course of about a week. I decided to make the song match Sburban Jungle structurally but not quote it directly, so that it functions as a rescore of [S] Enter, Cool and New Homestuck style. It was a real joy putting together this song and my favorite part has to be the bridge section quoting one of Bowman's non-Homestuck songs, This Is As Good As It Gets.
Creating this song taught me that it's never too late to make an idea you've wanted to do for years into reality. Speaking of ideas I've had for years… I'm currently working on a brand new CANMT solo album that I've wanted to do since 2018. You better be excited.
Sburban Jungle is one of my top favourite songs from Homestuck proper and this remix is so stellar i really wanted to do it justice in how i interpreted the song as a piece of art while not being obvious and just copying the original jumping rose track art from the OG album.
Rose is raising the stone head which is the iconography for Bowman's "This Is As Good As It Gets", readying herself to smash it on the edge of her home as she did the wine bottle to enter the Medium, or even just to chuck it into the water, who knows :)
Vast Ruse Listen on: Bandcamp
Cello ✑
I'll be completely honest and admit that I joined to work on this project entirely as a whim and to be able to do something for this community that has given me and everyone else so much. I think it's pretty common that everyone's first shot at everything kind of suck, and I'll admit that my track art isn't exactly the prettiest thing, but it's Neat enough for me to accept it as my first art.
For Vast Ruses, the idea immediately came up to me was of this great SBURB treasure that could be deployed multiple times to create ruses and distract enemies for massive damage. I described it also as "some sort of high-tier item you'd get if you went down some bastardised SBAHJ-ified SBURB alchemy route", which I think is fitting with CANWC.
If it sounds like there wasn't much thought in trying to fit this into CANWC properly beyond the obvious reference, it's because I honestly haven't read or thought of Cool And New Web Comic in so long that all I could keep in mind was Sweet Bro And Hella Jeff, so the sock in the picture was cut from the sock ruse strip.
And to finish my commentary:
- I would like to apologise to pixel artists for underestimating how hard pixel art really is.
- And a fuck you to GIMP for its piece of shit UI.
also wheres my vn o you circular fuc
Intentional Toby Listen on: Bandcamp
The cycle is complete. "Endure" was almost called "Unintentional Toby" because it ended up coming out a lot more similar to "Enemy Approaching" than I originally intended. So why not just go all the way with it?
Because of the song being a remix of Endure, I decided to put my own spin on the original song's art (which its other remix Endurance also did), and added the Intentional Toby from the title (his smug aura mocks me)... and a really ripped Hecka jef because I thought it was funny.
jack after he gets addicted to J-pop Listen on: Bandcamp
Shwan ✑
Note the excessive use of Royal Road. Title is definitely not a self-insert haha 😅
It turns out Jack Noir has a lot more fun doing his paper filing job if he puts on some nice Japanese city pop! Cecily Renns suggested the art should include that one really famous photo of Mariya Takeuchi, so I did.
MICHAELBOWVANIA Listen on: Bandcamp
ruby ✑
I made this like 2 years ago. I don't remember the details but I think Alice wanted me to make it?
Gee. I wonder who's Bowman throwing there! About the art itself, I kept it simple, [S] Wake's art on HS Music Wiki was this exact scene and I wanted to slap Bowman in front of it and decided to make it a vague reference to Bowmanstuck's cover art with the outfit. Shoutouts to Alice Bowman because Bowmanstuck's cover is fire.
Penumbra Phantasm (Ska) (Beta) Listen on: Bandcamp
NeRd ✑
From the depths of the Homestuck discography, Cool and New Music Team dredges up a forgotten early version of Penumbra Phantasm (Ska). We hope you enjoy a behind the scenes look into the making of the classic Penumbra Phantasm (Ska) you have grown to know and love.
When I was looking through the CaNMT discord server, I stumbled upon a message lamenting the lack of Penumbra Phantasm (Ska). I took it upon myself to remedy this issue, but my hubris blinded me and I flew too close to the sun... I was not ska enough to finish this track. The original idea was to continue the track into the B-section of Penumbra Phantasm, then go into FantasyP, then Sunsetter to end the track. I'll probably finish it at some point, but I want to redo the instrumentation and record real guitars... maybe for the next CaNMT album.
Jhon plays the brass instrument on a very safe place (dont try this
at home)
Very cool ska needs a very cool Jhon with atmosphere of leaves.The whole neighbourhood will appreciate this seronade and not call the police.
Ruins (With Jam) Listen on: Bandcamp
ft-rj ✑
"It's strawberry jam..." > You lick the song. You don't know what you expected, this tastes remarkably digital. Without a doubt, you retract your tongue... but despite your seconds-earlier self offering assurances that it tastes /terrible/, you go right back in for seconds. It's just so irresistible. Yeah, yeah. Jam that thing. The name's Ball... Basket Ball. Swished, not stirred. Is that funny? Am I funny now? It's been a little long and I can't really tell. Dunk on that one.
The first part of the moshi motif modified and repeated 12 times Listen on: Bandcamp
Shwan ✑
Alternatively, Variations on a theme of Crypt. Although the variation is not on the theme itself but the accompaniment and harmony. So technically this is closer to a Passacaglia? But not really that either, since it's not written in triple meter and the ostinato is not on the bass so idk :P.
Regardless, I like experimenting with modernizing classical forms. I tried to make each variation as unique as possible to avoid boring out the lsitener while still making everything feel connected as a whole. I hope you will enjoy it as well :D
I wanted to make something that represented Moshi Moshi as a motif. Decided to take a small hint from the song and place 12 references to other Moshi Moshi related arts, even ones from volume 4. So, let's play a game, if you find my 12 evil references you'll win a golden ticket to the cool and new factory. I'll give you a hint. Vrasky counts double.
"Cool/New" in F Major, Op. 72 Listen on: Bandcamp
This song and title is an obvious nod to Alex Votl's "Not Canon in F Major, Op 69" from the Beyond Canon album. I'm a big fan of Alex's work, in particuarly their "SBAHJ: The Album" record, which I maintain is the best piece of Homestuck fan music of all time. I'm just a sucker for this combination of emo-pop and chiptune. So this song is a tribute to his works, and also to my good friend Crypt's compositions, which I believe are some of the most iconic and memorable motifs from all of the CANMT discography.
This art shouldn't had taken a month. But it did anyways! Cecily suggested to take inspiration from Not Canon in F major, Op. 69's art and I gave it a cool and new webcomic coat of paint. And also a Flandre Scarlet Hecka jef from Unintentional Touhou fame. Jebb suggested some final touch ups and I gotta give him credit for it because it really looks better.
Moshi Pit Listen on: Bandcamp
Jebb ✑
I wanted at least one of the tracks i made for this album to actually feature CANMT melodies, so i picked Moshi! It's a fun melody, so why not.
I imagined this as a track that would be played in a stadium of concerningly sweaty people, and the sampled cheers reflect that. Halfway in it breaks out in a double time, and the cheers speed up.
I felt like the solo earthbound overdrive guitar sounded a bit harsh, so in the track it is layered with an earthbound accordion to add some texture.
Also, this track was actually inspired by the cover art! The artist made it when the track was very early in development, and i decided to add the electronic piano to reflect hecka playing it on the cover.
to be quite honest i also just really, really wanted to draw canmt-tan. with a funny guitar
The Rabbit's Climb Listen on: Bandcamp
Thank you, Buzinkai.
upp word movmeant HD 2.5 Remix Listen on: Bandcamp
koba ✑
"I've created a monster“
This song is a smorgasbord of just stuff and i really wanted to represent that, since so many older mashups like this display the inspirations in the art (72.0x SHOWDOWN COMBO, etc) and i wanted to go further beyond >:)
Not everything is represented here, but most songs in it have characters from a music video or related media as their rep.I also wanted to challenge myself and pay homage to the origin of Upward Momentum, which is Dave: Acent to the Highest Point of the Building
Also funny long door
When the Gods Awake (feat. Kasane Teto) Listen on: Bandcamp
Perhaps the ACTUAL oldest song in the album? I wrote a Homestuck fanfic a long time ago named When the Gods Awake that you can still find on fanfiction.net. That's also when I came up with the song. The idea of "When the Gods Awake" and this name for a song comes from when I was writing Rain, my second CANMT solo album. Back then, I had the idea for a song, with a chorus that goes like "When the gods awake / And you don't know what to do / You just step right up / And buckle in for a ride" I never ended up using those last two lines, but I revisited the idea a few times, under the name "Sungazer" which was going to become a Sunsetter (Ska) cover. This was going to be submitted for Lands of Fans and Music Act 5 Act 2, but I stopped being friends with the vocalist who was going to perform this song. Rather than finding a replacement, I began workshopping several different new iterations of the song, with the final version becoming this, a revisit of the When the Gods Awake concept. I was going to find a vocalist, but I used Kasane Teto as a temp vocal track and she sounded so good that I ended up leaving her in the track. In a classic "Ships of Theseus" style (or perhaps Moons of Theseus?), this song has no resemblance to the original 2018 song idea at all, but the core themes remain the same: I wanted to explore how the inhahbitants of Earth C would really react when our main characters arrive there. I mean, the idea of your own deities coming to your society and uprooting the current structure of government you already had for 5000 years to rule as kings is.... sort of existentially terrifying. I was always weirded out by this plot development in the Credits.
i think teto is a prospit dreamer 🥖 🌙
TRAITORLOVANIA Listen on: Bandcamp
cool and new delta rune ???
Even if this is is a cool and new web comic album and is homsetuck adjacent, but megalovania has a long history and i wanted to represent the oldest megalovania version in the art :)
Also since this is Vs Susie i think its coolest to represent Susie at her meanest, even before she goes to the Dark World. she has very scary eyes when her hair was over her face.
gio strut Listen on: Bandcamp
Thank you to the team for inspiring me to create. Thank you, listener, for encouraging me to be me. I'm so grateful for these memories. What can I say—it's cool and new.
If I may elaborate on the song, Gio posted the Bluesky post (or skeet) depicted in the art, and we had a good laugh about it, and Crypt was the only one who actually decided to dedicate his song to Gio. As you might know, Gio is a good friend to many of us, and as the former maintainer of the Unofficial Homestuck Collection, we all owe a debt to him for providing us with the best method to experience Homestuck. They'll never make us hate you, Gio. Thanks dude! (As for the art, it was entirely Crypt and Jebb's idea, and Jebb and Wight did the final touches, so all credits goes to them)
Tycoon's Crater Listen on: Bandcamp
This song was an attempt to experiment with kind of jungle-y drum production and programming, much more so than I usually do.
Hopefully it captures the truly cool and new feeling. And roller coasters, of course. Insane to think that we're 10 years on now.
What would cool and new web comic be without rollercoaster tycoon? A miserable pile of Homestuck references. Talking seriously, been almost 10 years since I joined the CANMT, and I'm surprised how much I improved when it comes to art. I am not a professional artist, and I don't pretend to be, but I do love making art and it's what matters. I'll leave a fun callback to I would have done this 10 years ago, remember tycoonival?
What Ends Must Begin Listen on: Bandcamp
ft-rj ✑
it's ten years later and i am now ten usernames in. funny how that works. in retrospect, "_" and repeating it a few times was a shitty username idea, but it wasn't much better than what i ran before that, which was precisely twenty colons "::::::::::::::::::::" on various forums. so, really, i didn't come up with a username of true usernamence until i was 18 with 'sylvarn', but then it clashed with some french guy in a game i was playing, so i changed it to 'ft-rj', since i'd already been going by rj for years. this was timed pretty well as it allowed me to kind of have an organic musical identity? of sorts. not much of the old has followed me into the new, though i'll always be really happy about how this team took me from zero musicality to All Of It. seriously, i think i'm really good. maybe too much, actually. it's like the opposite of how i was back then! ahem. now, anyways. haha, roller coaster, am i right? you don't find that funny anymore? revise your edition? no? shit... what? what's that? aaAH... [...]
[unpause.] it has been 10,000 years. i have lived a hundred lives. grand dad is still not that funny but pretty cool when it shows up in a siivagunner rip. cool and new volume 12 is just about ready but they're asking me to do some commentary. audacity 8.5947.4 version b134 can do your mashups for you, and it sucks. i still haven't saved up enough for my beloved fursona to get a suit of. what? you're saying this text box goes to the past? no, no way. time travel isn't even real, the felt were a bunch of hacks... hacks... wait a second... i could hack into the cool and new government mainframe. I'm sure they have a way...
[BEEP!!!!]
---AH, ah. what was that? that was scary. anyways, revising another edition some day, i just can't figure out how to do it. fl studio 25 kind of fucked with the tempo matching and i don't wanna do it manually again. by the way, my bandcamp is ready to go and has been for years. everyone should move there now if you haven't already. sorry everyone else. #evil. by the way, i'm purple now. this won't affect anything in a few thousand years, though. nothing's gonna be the same...you guys think we're gonna get an update this decade?
This song is so sick and Even in Death is already one of my favourite homestuck songs, i HAD to make some cool looking art that gives the same mystical and ominous vibe. CANWC's Pink Sun is way cooler than a Green Sun too and a pink black hole is really cool. (Even if it is more Purple kinda) Also Rose's Space and Time outfit is incredible i wanted an excuse to draw her that way and shes too cool to look at explosions (aftermath)
Oneiric Piano Refrain Listen on: Bandcamp
Shwan ✑
Showtime was the first song/motif to really hook me into Homestuck, so I want to make something similar as a tribute.
MrCheeze ✑
thought process here is "this piano refrain sounds good therefore non-shitty john AU"
Whinter Listen on: Bandcamp
You know the meme with Shannon Sharpe in various suits with Winter by Vivaldi playing over it? that's what inspired me to make this.
I decided to do completely hand-drawn art for this one. Rose is fun to draw and Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff are even more so, so this art was well within my comfort zone. I took inspiration from Calvin and Hobbes for her bizarre snowmen. Also, people, for the ten millionth time. It's "I warned you about stairs", not "I warned you about the stairs".
shuckiuss gusgaber Listen on: Bandcamp
Jebb ✑
This track was made in like 15 minutes for fun in 2024. Now it is here. Improved and better than ever.
This is supposed to be a gag remix of the fnf Jane/Jake track "Shucks Buster", and no i have no idea how "buster" turned into "gusgaber".
gave jane a crockercorp tracksuit and made her hakken. it just felt right in my spirit and my heart
Creeping Madness Listen on: Bandcamp
Rose gets the best character themes and you can't convince me otherwise.
Rose losing her sanity. Is she real? Is she not? Is she as shitty as the rest and she doesn't know? No color, just black and white. Corrupted and uncorrupted. That's the way of the cool and new world.
Final Credit Listen on: Bandcamp
"I wish I had made more stuff for Cool and New Music Team" was the main thought running through my head when I realized I had a chance to put something on Volume 10. CANMT was my first foray into "making art online" and being part of the team was an absolute blast, but at no point did I ever go all-in on it like so many others. The vast majority of the stuff I made never even got posted in the Discord because the thought of inviting judgement on my work was terrifying. It still is, even with ten more years of experience in both, and this has held me back as an artist more than anything else. But CANMT was something special, a truly judgement-free space where anyone could make anything they wanted to. If you find yourself part of something like that, treasure the time you have and make as much "bad" art as you can! Be cringe and be free! Without CANMT helping me break through that paralysis, I'm not sure I would have ever started making music or posting anything I made online. That ethos of "just make stuff" has stuck with me hard. So I love this team, I love what we made together, and I love the tiny part I played in it. Okay, enough sappy stuff! This song was made in a single-day frenzy because I noticed a startling lack of credit score on the rest of the album and felt compelled to create a send-off to the best worst meme that ever graced our collective ears. The atmosphere builds slowly into something completely overwhelming, and in some sense I wanted to try and capture what it must have felt like for the Big Man Himself to hear his voice repeated and distorted so many times. Despite the oppressive nature, I wanted this track to touch on something sublime and for the soundscape to be something that you could close your eyes and find yourself totally lost in. I took a lot of inspiration from that one TikTok of the tornado sirens harmonizing. I really wanted to make more than just this track, but May and June ended up being extremely busy months for me both in the IRL deparment and the Drehmal development department (BTW play Drehmal at https://www.drehmal.net). Maybe I'll make two tracks for our twentieth anniversary album. Anyways, I hope you enjoy Final Credit!
shook my head each time i made an edit to this image to let the audience know i disapprove of my own actions. its bowman as madotsuki.
PENUMBRA // FANTHOLOGY Listen on: Bandcamp
This song took me a long, long time to make, and I could say a ton about it. However, as tempted as I am to write a mutli-page, LaTeX'ed deep dive on every reference, influence, and production technique, I'll keep it to the essentials. I could always do that later anyway.
The project file for this song on my computer says “September 6, 2023” but the seeds of this song are quite a bit older, and I think that the original inspiration came to me in 2016, a few months after we started CANMT. In a similar way, I've always wanted to do a Penumbra remix, and I've discarded a handful of them over the years. Is this song even really a Penumbra Phantasm remix? Maybe, maybe it's just “all the ideas I had left in Homestuck music”. There's a good chance this is the end for me on that front, especially because after two years of working on this track, finishing it became more of a chore than anything else. On the other hand, I think I said I was done after Volume 3. So who knows - I could be back. This song is really two in one, hence the title. Keep an eye out for meme number times, and enjoy. Thanks to opossumcarrion for the wonderful track art. Thanks to the team for coming together once again to make this album happen, and thank YOU for listening!
Yin and yang, John and jhon, canon and fanon. Canon orbits the Green Sun, fanon orbits the Pink Sun, but neither's light reaches the other. Penumbra Phantasm, silent and omitted but integral to Homestuck, is loud and triumphantly celebrated in fanon. This song naturally lends to this visual representation. Serendipitously, the Blender noise tools driving the volumetrics glitched fantastically, providing the checkered artifacts. Much to say, little space: I've loved CANMT for a decade, thank you for producing some of my favorite music to ever exist, and for giving me the opportunity to contribute track art.
Makin ✑
References "Penumbra Phantasm" by Toby Fox and a lot of other motifs the musician refuses to share, good luck hsmusic wiki...
Some freebies:
"Get Up" by Toby Fox is at the start, "FantasyP" by Erik Scheele after that, also "Doctor" by Buzinkai and Michael Guy Bowman (potentially even Michael Vallejo because the drums are the exact same) five minutes in, then it moves onto "Another Medium" by Toby Fox? Or maybe Patient? And then the Asgore leitmotif??? or is that already in Another Medium? And then "Gaia Queen" by Toby Fox, I'm going to be real with you I have no idea what that has to do with PP. Maybe it's the Queen from Deltarune and we get to fight her again in Chapter 7? What do you know, interrobang... wait what the fuck why is "Unlabeled" by Erik Scheele here? Or is this Gymnopédie again? Both?
Homeward Bound (CANMT Version) Listen on: Bandcamp
WarxTron ✑
Was very, very moved to be invited to contribute to this album. I stepped down from making Homestuck tracks in 2020 when I contributed a fairly lengthy progressive rock track to Land of Fans and Music 5. I felt this reunion album was a good opportunity to come back and do the exact opposite. So I came up with this gentle folk Neil Young-ish song with some Homestuck leitmotifs that I never stopped loving. I dedicate this track to everyone on this team, for these awesome ten years, and for giving me the space to grow as a musician and be a part of this community back when I was just a kid with FL Studio and far too young to be reading Homestuck. Even though I wasn't involved throughout much of CANMT's history, I always felt like everyone saw me as a part of it. Being invited back for this album genuinely meant a lot to me. Thank you all.
cool and new volume 4
Main Album (1–27)
Bonus tracks (28–29)