Theredsunband - Pavement' (2003)
The sound-mass here is made up of a highly distorted guitar with very little treble, two languid voices (one female, one male), drum-kit and tambourine. Though the form is punctuated by the refrain, which features the song's title, the experience of the track is perhaps more of its sound-mass than the succession of sections or musical ideas. A verse/bridge form is buried in the sound, the bridge discernible through a subtle change in melody, but the sectional contrast is obscured by the accompaniment, which remains the same for the bridge as the verse. Some sense of climax is discernible in the rise in vocal register and dynamics in the next to last verse/refrain, but this, again, is very subtle compared to the sense of 'quest embodied in the structures already discussed where sectional contrast is much more clearly articulated. Rather than negotiating a journey with a relatively predictable trajectory, the listener is immersed in the sound-mass, coming up for air, as it were, in the textural pause of each refrain.
Animal Collective - 'People' (2000)
Although layers of instrumentation build up gradually towards the entry of the vocal at two minutes into the recording, rather than forming a procession through contrasting sections, this piece, like 'Pavement is defined more by its 'three-dimensional sound-mass than by its linear form. Either the receiver (listener seems too restricted a term) of this music surrenders to immersion in the sound-mass, or she is likely to find the repetition unengaging. If pressed, one might say there is a verse ('yeah, yeah-eah/yeah yeah-eah') and refrain (the ’PEOPLE!!!!!!’ scream) structure discernible, but this is buried beneath shimmering guitar textures and blasting drum accents. To define this simple strophe as containing verse and bridge is to stretch the definitions of these terms to breaking point.
One might also argue that the gradual build of layers at the start of the recording, and the quick depletion of them at the end, constitutes a quest narrative articulated by the density of the sound-mass rather than by sections defined by contrasting harmonic progressions. This is the most conspicuous example of those presented here of Lochhead's formbuilding, the layers accreting gradually in such a way that they are relatively indistinguishable to the ear.[1] This can also be true of strophic forms, where
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- ↑ It is worth noting that for Animal Collective around this time (2006), this practice of gradual accretion depletion of layers, with melodic elements buried, and occasionally rising up through the sonic
PORTAL, vol. 8, no. 1, January
