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"ETO", the fourth and final track from my instrumental IKE EP. For a description of the album as a whole, see this post.
For a description of this song specifically, see the "read more" below.
CM4-37AETO “ETO”
CM4s (“Combat Model 4s”) were designed in response to the problems with previous CM3s and CM3*s. They have the most advanced self-learning upgrades of all non-specialized combat models.
CM4s are often deployed as high-ranking “leaders” in squads of lower-ranking models, though they are also known to be deployed on their own for reconnaissance or termination duties.
ETO was originally deployed for a clandestine operation behind enemy lines. Though the operation was initially deemed successful, ETO returned with concerning bugs in its programming that forced the RAS to retain ETO at one of its production facilities, with the intention to eventually destroy ETO once the source of its bugs were found.
ETO’s apparent escape, as well as the resultant loss of life at the production facility, resulted in a decision by the RAS to destroy all remaining CM4s currently in active deployment.
Later CM5s and CM6s were subsequently given much more restricted self-learning algorithms, with the very last line of models being produced in much fewer numbers so that designers could manually program and build each model to more effectively suit their specialized roles.
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“ETO” was the final song I wrote for the IKE EP. I created its three-chord progression as early as fall of 2024 (around the same time I started working on the initial iterations of “TUKS”), though I only got around to writing and recording the bulk of “ETO” a couple of months later in May/June of 2025. Given its position as the album closer, I always wanted it to be a slow, calming song with a nice buildup to a sudden, powerful bridge, which I hoped would help it stand out from the rest of the songs on the album. I also thought it’d be fun if this song featured motifs from the other tracks of the album, which is why its buildup and outro include small, modified versions of the riffs from “IKE”, “TUKS”, and “ZAGHAZ”.
The song features a lot of chords with weird fretting positions, since I was going through a kick of trying to find out what weird chords I could play that still sounded reasonably nice. Additionally, the distorted bridge used to basically play the exact same thing as the clean buildup but with distortion added, but I realized later on that this made the bridge feel anticlimactic, as you were essentially just listening to the exact same thing you’d already heard for the last minute, just with distortion on top. Thus, I changed the bridge to now feature a new guitar solo instead. Normally, before I record anything, I write all of my solos in advance in my music notation program so I know how I want it the solos to sound; for this song, however, since my choice to include a solo was a “last-minute” decision, I ended up having to improvise a solo “on the spot” while I was recording. Or, more accurately, I sat in front of my computer for an hour improvising the solo in small chunks to find out what worked and then piecing it all together in the end.
XMs (“Experimental Models”) were among the first models produced by RAS under the AAW program. During the period when XMs were being designed, RAS was still a small-scale private military company that only dealt with human security contractors. As such, XMs were only ever officially designated for use in non-combat support roles, even though there were reports of XMs being sighted on the frontlines.
When later combat models were officially released, many XMs were scrapped for raw material. It remains unclear why IKE was not scrapped.
As one of the only remaining XMs of its kind, IKE is also one of the few known models to exhibit “mirroring” behavior, which AAW had been experimenting with before transitioning to its more common “self-learning” algorithms seen on later models.
Remaining information about IKE, or other similar XMs, is hard to come by, as RAS heavily safeguards most of its documentation regarding experimental models.
IKE is a four-track instrumental EP that I wrote during the summer of 2024. I had been interested in the idea of writing solely instrumental tracks for at least a few years, both because I grew up listening to the instrumental rock duo Ratatat, as well as suggestions from my father to release the instrumentals for some of my vocal-focused tracks (which I plan on doing one day in the future). When the summer of 2024 came, I realized it was way too hot for me to try recording vocals in the garage like I normally did for my other songs, which made it a great time to commit to writing an instrumental EP.
Regarding the subject matter of the EP itself, “IKE” is a story that I began brainstorming back in 2022 as a way for me to explore subject matters beyond the typical anthro-focused narratives I am used to writing. More specifically, “IKE” is a story I came up with that centers around four humanoid robot soldiers, known as “Models”, who exist in a post-apocalyptic world which was torn apart by nuclear war. It is heavily inspired by video games like Battlefield 4 and the Metro series, and the short stories I would write about the characters (which I only ever shared with my friends) are written in pseudo-computer-terminal language, reflecting the fact that the four main characters are robots who cannot communicate with each other in typical human ways.
Each of the four tracks from this EP were written to represent each of the four main models in the story: IKE (an original, experimental model and the primary protagonist of the storyline), TUKS (a model originally designed for factory work that was later reassigned as a machine gunner), ZAGHAZ (a frontline soldier model riddled with programming issues), and ETO (an advanced sniper/reconnaissance model whom is the de-facto leader of the group).
“IKE” was the first song I wrote for the titular IKE EP, and given IKE is the main character of this storyline, it made sense to me that this track should also be the theme song for the storyline as a whole. As such, I wanted this track to cover all the bases I would expect to have for this kind of post-apocalyptic storyline: the acoustic chord progression during the verses conveys an overall dreary feeling, reflecting the monotony which comes with having to scavenge for supplies throughout the wasteland; the distorted chorus chord progression has more major chords, reflecting a hopeful feeling that someone might get every so often when things seem to be getting better; and finally, the song features a bridge which slowly builds up anxious energy, reflecting the firefights that the models sometimes find themselves in when they encounter mutated wasteland creatures or other models who are willing to fight over dwindling supplies.
