Month: November 2023

In our second to last week of class we started by listening to more electronic genres. This time our focus was on a genre called breakcore. Breakcore music typically features rapid-fire beats, with tempos often exceeding 200 beats per minute. The genre is known for its heavy use of breakbeats, drum patterns sampled from funk, soul, and hip-hop tracks, which are then distorted and chopped up to create a frenetic, chaotic sound.

We listened to a number of artists including Clipping, Sophie, AJA Ireland and Igorrr. Following on from our intellectual discussions on the artists we delved into watching a documentary one the subject of breakcore. The documentary went heavily in depth showcasing a number of artists and their inspirations towards their sound, including how they achieved the tone they were looking for.

After our breakcore sessions we looked into another niche genre called industrial noise listening to Pharmakon and Haus Arafna. Although this music isn’t really my thing I can understand how the music can relate to the listener, really engaging with them on an emotional level. David Toop, the author of the Ocean of Sound book describes it like this:

Their nature was unprecedented – their intensity, volume, texture and shape – and so musical history should come to an end. The slow evolution of musical language had suffered a massive stroke, to be replaced by a vigorously healthy art of noises.

As part of our blog post we have been tasked with analysing a topic discussed during the class that sparked our interest. I have chosen to delve into the underground noise artist ‘House Arafna’.

Haus Arafna are an influential entity in the noise music scene. They are recognised for their unconventional and raw approach to their sound. Their compositions often go into dark, industrial themes, utilising distorted beats, eerie atmospheres, and haunting vocals to create a unique sonic landscape.

Their music utilises a sense of intensity and raw emotion that draws the listeners into a realm that feels both mesmerising and uncomfortable. They explore themes that resonate with the darker aspects of human existence, often evoking a sense of uneasiness and curiosity.

Their work challenges the traditional musical norms, crafting an experience that is both experimental and thought-provoking while heavily appealing to those with an interest in exploring unconventional music.

When listening to Haus Arafna I was reminded of an artist we had researched during a previous class called ‘Throbbing Gristle’. They share a similarity for pushing their sonic boundaries and exploring the dark side of sound. Both Haus Arafna and Throbbing Gristle incorporate unconventional techniques and themes into their music, contributing to the industrial scene.

Toop, David. “The Art of Noise – Tate Etc.” Tate, www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-3-spring-2005/art-noise. Accessed 23 Nov. 2023.

Within our class this week we delved heavily into the mind of the composer and musician ‘Brian Eno’ and his genre of expertise called ‘ambient music’. For our research as a class, we watched the short 1989 documentary called ‘Imaginary Landscapes in which Brian discusses and shares in great detail his creative process on how he writes songs and composes his music.

We looked at a number of other ambient artists before we were given our blog task for this week. We have each been assigned a chapter of the book entitled ‘Ocean Of Sound’ which talks about the ambient music scene and its major inspirations.

I have been given chapter two, ‘if you find earth boring…’. In this chapter we focus on the ambient jazz artist ‘Sun Ra’, detailing his overall life and musical journey. Sun Ra is a musician known for his unique and imaginative style. In the chapter it shows how he saw music differently, focusing on spacial vibes and breaking the rules of music at the time. Sun Ra was all about making music that was beyond what people were used to, diving into cosmic themes and pushing the limits of what music could be.

Although difficult to comprehend at first, the author’s way of writing mixes stories, detailed descriptions, scenic metaphors and personal thoughts, giving us a full picture of how Sun Ra made his music differently. He talks about gigs and moments in Sun Ra’s life.

In the second page of the chapter he describes Sun Ra’s first UK gig as ”one of the most spectacular concerts ever held in this country” and compares his performance to ”A man who had chosen to discard all the possibilities of a normal life, even a normal jazz life, in favour of an unremitting alien identity”.

He vividly describes Sun Ra’s expert musical experimentation, describing how he blurred musical boundaries by combining diverse elements like “percussion tornadoes” and “haunting saxophone riffs.”

Sun Ra feels a little out of place to me in this book as even though he definitely has an influence coming from the ambient space in his discography he mainly comes across as more of a jazz artist with light experimental tendencies although after reading through the chapter it does make sense as to why the author included him, with his heavy discussion into experimentation with what he calls ‘space vibrations’. His experimental tendencies resonated with the essence of ambient music, creating sonic spaces unusual to the average music listener.

After listening to a few of Sun Ra’s albums his music has really connected with me, in particular the tune ”Round Midnight’ from his very recent album entitled ‘The Space Age Is Here To Stay’. This song proves to us that even after 50-plus years he still has the creative ideas and musical capabilities to make something that really resonates with the listener, showcasing his enduring creativity even after decades in the industry.

Toop, D. (1996) ‘if you find earth boring…’, in Ocean of sound. Virgin, pp. 23–32. 

In this week of class, we started off by listening to multiple experimental and industrial electronic artists that our tutor showed us. This included Muslimgauze, Throbbing Gristle, Cedrik Fermont and Einstürzende Neubauten.

We were directed to engage in conversation and discuss their unique aesthetics and how the context of the music engaged with us as a listener. We have been tasked with discussing a song of our own choice with a similar vibe to the tracks we listened to.

have decided to go with the song ‘Bloom’ off the controversial Radiohead album ‘The King Of Limbs’. Bloom is a statement track. It was the first song of the first release after they revolutionised the music industry with In Rainbows. With it being the most accessible album of their career, they needed to make another “turn” in a career of turns.

Bloom is quite simply jazz. It is loops and loops with three or four different melodic ideas happening at the same time and then Thom’s voice takes it to another level, Is it my favorite Radiohead song? Probably not. But I think it has to be one of the band’s favourites since it has made its way onto many set lists despite the fact that it must be challenging to perform live. 

You can clearly see this evidence in their exceptional ‘From The Basement’ performance in 2011 in which they’ve employed three different drummers (one of which is their lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood) to replicate the numerous loops and samples heard on the studio recording and to create this wide open free-form aesthetic encapsulating the entire stereo field.

The song was heavily inspired by the natural history documentary series ‘Blue Planet’ created by the BBC in 2001. Thom Yorke spoke about this in a BBC interview saying “It was me lying on the sofa trying to go to sleep after being up too late with my young son and it was just coming in and out of my subconscious”.

Several years later Radiohead came together with Hans Zimmer (the original composer of the tv show) to remix and record a highly orchestral version of the track for the sequel to the acclaimed ‘Blue Planet’ series. The updated re-release was recorded alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra. Thom Yorke stated in a follow-up interview: “Bloom was inspired by the original Blue Planet series so it’s great to be able to come full circle with the song and re-imagine it for this incredible landmark’s sequel.”

What I absolutely love about this version is the technique they utilised with the orchestra, called ‘tidal orchestra’ which is used to create “a whole musical environment that’s built out of a single note”, with each player in the orchestra taking turns playing it creates a large ambient aesthetic that almost sounds like waves which reflects back heavily with the inspiration that Thom Yorke was getting when he first wrote the track years before. You can hear them discussing this technique in the excellent video linked below.

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/radiohead/bloom

 Bloom by Radiohead – Songfacts Available at: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/radiohead/bloom (Accessed: 10 November 2023). 

During this week of class we were tasked with analysing music from a record label out of Uganda called Hakuna Kulala. We listened to a couple songs from a few artists on the label in class and then discussed them, including MC Yallah and Auntie Rayzor.

Following on from this we were tasked with gathering information about Hakuna Kuala, their music, and their unique fusion of electronic and African influences. Our main task is to choose one of the artists under the Hakuna Kuala label and analyse one of their tracks.

I have decided to go with ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ off the most recent album ‘ Becoming Adomaa’ by the artist ‘Adomaa’. I chose this song and this artist in particular because of the stark contrast it had in tone and instrumentation overall. I wasn’t a huge fan of the more electronic vibes the other artists pursued so when I came across Adomaa, the jazzy vibes fused with the traditional African beats and soul influences really spoke to me, combining gospel choir-esque vocals and harmonies.

The song starts off with a bossanova style fingerpicked acoustic guitar playing chordal arpeggios accompanied by Adomaa’s very breathy falsetto vocals. Production-wise, the guitar is the only instrument used, and it creates a rich, full-bodied sound that is accentuated by the wet reverb giving it a wide open space to reflect all around your head. Additionally, the use of the melodic minor scale and bass note rundowns further add to this jazzy bossanova style which is quite uncommon in traditional African music.

With the lead vocals they are right at the forefront of the song and are almost entirely accompanied with additional harmonies and double-tracked stereo-panned leads. With the low and high harmonies of the main vocal there are also additional heavily saturated breathy background vocals that become almost the main instrument during the chorus sections with the sheer number of overdubs and cathedral esque reverb plugins used.

The subtle ambience from these layers greatly helps to fill out the gaps left by the lack of instrumentation as without it it could sound a little narrow but as the song progresses these vocal layers gradually build up giving the songs tone a great dynamic shift before everything cuts out at the end and we are left with just Adomaa and a small amount of harmonies singing.

With the vocal outro we get the first glimpse at Adomaa speaking in her native tongue emphasising her african heritage and roots. As Adomaa grew up in Nigeria and Ghana she was heavily influenced by her father who worked as a preacher in the local church, leading her to join the church choir. The influence of her choir experience is clearly evident in this track, authentically reflecting her formative years in west africa.