Running Through The Maze

Each blog post, I tell the story that I have in my mind while working on my instrumental music. I almost never use lyrics or words, but I do use a fictional story or imagery I've created for myself as the driving force. 

"Running Through The Maze", the title track of my 2019 debut album. The centerpiece of the album, placed right in the middle. I played a very early version of this track for my wife, when it was just one piano part from me noodling around. I had no title in mind just yet, so I asked her to tell me what images comes to mind when listening. Right away she said, “It was kind of like running through a maze.”

I was like "OH SHIT!"  I saved the project as "Running Through The Maze" right away, and what's more (I never say "what's more" in real life, feels too fancy to say), this will be the name of the album! It all clicked into place from that one comment. 

Thus began the process of thinking about the The Maze as the background for the whole album. Read on to discover the tale of the title track and album, an instrumental journey of creatures and threats, "Running Through The Maze". 

Click the image to listen to the song and album "Running Through The Maze"

I'm a sucker for falling down a rabbit hole of urban legends, myths, and haunted locations. I especially love finding local and lesser known legends, the closer the better. 

A few years back I was scrolling one of my favorite haunted location groups on Reddit. I was seeing a lot of the same content as usual, but then a random comment caught my eye. It was nothing but numbers and decimals. I recognized this as a GPS location and quickly popped the coordinates into Maps. 

And, holy shit, it's a location less than 20 minutes away from me. 

It was an unseasonably cool and comfortable Summer night, my wife was out of town for a work function, so it was the perfect time for me to be on my bullshit and get into some haunted shenanigans. 

Off I went into my car and I arrived to my destination shortly after. It's funny, even though it was so close, I somehow had never drove that way or even heard of this town. 

Maps tells me I'm "there", but, what is "there" exactly? No houses nearby, the last streetlight was at least a couple miles away. By that point the road was just a dead end dirt trail. It was very dark out, all I could really tell is that there seemed to be little more than a big grass field and dirt. 

I stepped out of the car and surveyed the land. I didn't actually know what I was looking for. I gazed up to the sky, it's not often I have such a clear and uninterrupted view of the nighttime sky. 

I saw a really bright star giving off an orange hue. I assumed it was a planet. I thought probably Jupiter. I brought up my Star Walk app to help me identify the star, only to find I have absolutely no cell service. No wifi, no location services, nothing. 

I looked back at the orange orb and noticed it started cycling through colors. It was like someone had hung an LED light, set to the slow color change setting. Orange to red, red to green, green to blue, and so on until it cycled back to orange. 

 I just couldn't stop looking at it. It was just so trippy in that moment. I was being hypnotized by Jupiter. 

The spell broke and my eyes shifted back down to Earth level. As though hundreds of years had passed in an instant, the open grass field was now filled with giant hedge bushes, at least 20 feet tall, purposely arranged.

In a desperate attempt to normalize the situation, I told myself it was here the whole time. I can see it now because my eyes have adjusted to the dark. I knew right away I was just lying to myself.

Just ahead of me there break in the bushes, a natural entrance. I knew I should get back to the car and come back in the daylight, if I ever come back at all. But, like I said, I was on my bullshit and ready to get into some haunted shenanigans. 

I continued down to find the path diverted into two directions. I take a left and then quickly find out there's another fork in the pathway. I couldn't really see where it led, I have to walk down the path to find out. I take a right, then eventually another right, or maybe it was a left? And then make some more turns. I dunno man. 

And of course, I totally found myself lost. This isn't just some nature trail, this is a straight-up maze. Like, The Shining style but much larger.

​Attempts to retrace my steps to hopefully reverse back to the beginning were absolute failures. The only thing I could do at that point was to focus on getting out of this maze.

I press onward, drawing from my experience with local corn mazes I visit each year. I stay to the left as much as possible. That way I can just work my way back and continue left if I run into a dead end. 

After a series of turns, weaving my way through this living maze, a bright blue light cut through the leaves and branches around a bend in the trail up ahead.

I turn the corner to a scene that makes me seriously question reality. Bolts of lightning and moonlight revealed belfries built up into the sky with large clouds of bats flapping around them. 

I stared into the threshold of another world. It's impossibly huge, the dimensions making no sense. I should have been able to see this from miles away. It just doesn't seem real. I'm staring into some other realm.

Though scared and confused in the moment, I have the thought of this being like entering a level through a painting on the wall in Mario 64. 

I turned around to run away, only to find the path behind me was closed off by more bushes that had instantaneously sprouted up. I had no choice but to enter this world of Lots Of Bats, Many Belfries. 

Now, each "world" I enter and every creature I challenge throughout my journey of Running Through The Maze will have its own complete story told individually here on Trapped Inside This Blog. The fact that you're reading this now means that I survived The Maze, or at least I think I did. 

Surviving each location grants me access deeper into, and eventually out of The Maze. 

Continuing following this blog to find out how I survived the bats, or how I outsmarted a group of ghosts to capture a mysterious glowing wooden chest with black iron trimming.

Follow me as I encounter a horrifying clown, evil dark spirits in a haunted hotel, gargoyles that can come to life, and an island voodoo practitioner with a penchant for murder.

Walk with me through a spirit-filled graveyard, meet The Devil himself, and find out how I evaded a swarm of zombies. 

It's weird though, sometimes I still think a part of me is still there, Running Through The Maze. Stay with me to discover if I ever find the truth about the Maze, and why was it never there despite returning to it many times day and night for years after?  And where is that cryptic Reddit comment that got me there in the first place?


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So that's the kickoff for the story and concept of Running Through The Maze. If it wasn't obvious, each entity encountered represents a track on the album which will eventually get its own blog post. I consider the title track itself as basically the music that would connect each scene when going from one to the next. 

​Influences on the sound include Charles Bernstein, particularly his score in NIghtmare On Elm Street, as well as Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. And really, the 2 albums you can choose from in the Black Mirror episode "Bandersnatch" - Isao Tomita's The Bermuda Triangle album and Trangerine Dream's Phaedra album were huge influences on everything on all the Running Through The Maze tracks include the title track. 
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Be sure to listen to the title track Running Through The Maze on all streaming platforms. You may get lost in the forest, or stranded in a bog. But never get Trapped Inside This Blog​. ​