he arranged and recorded it in the style of The Midnight Sun. Music As with Architect, The Midnight Sun is a dreamlike baroque pop record with many moments of layers of Duncan's voice executing harmonies. However, The Midnight Sun has a more polished sound due to Duncan upgrading the studio after completing Architect, is more electronic as it incorporates more synthesizers, includes more tinges of contemporary jazz, and features more complex percussion. Duncan claimed he put hidden compositional references to other songs on The Midnight Sun: the pitch of "The Last to Leave"'s melody follows the direction of "Edelweiss," a show tune from The Sound of Music, and Duncan used elements of the melodies in William Walton's piece Belshazzar's Feast for the songs "Who Lost" and "Jupiter." Juan Edgardo Rodriguez of PopMatters called the album more pop-oriented than Architect, which he compared to Kevin Parker's direction into pop on his Tame Impala album Currents (2015), and noted that Duncan plays around with elements of pop on the album. The Midnight Sun was inspired by the atmosphere and format of Rod Serling's television The Twilight Zone, which is why the album is titled after the tenth episode of the show's third season. The Twilight Zone inspired Duncan to make an "anthology series styled album" where, despite each song being different conceptually, the atmospheres and styles of each songs connect together, creating a cohesive listen. This departed from his previous album Architect (2015), which mixed together elements from a bunch of genres and, to Duncan, felt like a "collection of songs" rather than an actual LP. In terms of tone, The Midnight Sun is also more ominous than Architect. The place Duncan was living in while he made the album was Glasgow, where during the summer, nighttime lasts for only three to four hours. This had a "claustrophobic, mysterious and unnerving" effect on his mental state that he related to the tone of The Twilight Zone, so he incorporated that into The Midnight Sun. Lyrics The Midnight Sun's dark character is further enforced by its lyrics, which deal with relationship issues, depression, and other situations Duncan went through. "Like You Do" is a song about a depression that one of Duncan's friends was suffering from while he recorded the album. The themes of "Other Side" were influenced by his desire to be outside of his hometown as a result of enjoying his