Page 1 of 1

Instrumental embellishments as a subtext

PostPosted: 06 Dec 2016, 15:28
by Impossible birds
Has anyone else been closely listening to Divers with good headphones and good vibes and just geeking out at the incredible mix on this album? The attention to detail that's gone into putting this together is just phenomenal, it's like this three-dimensional, completely immersive, fully realised universe, full of contrasts and hidden meanings. I think it was the marxophone on Leaving the City that really drew my attention to it- so amazing.

Anyhow, listening with mindfulness, full attention and just being present to each and every moment in the songs has been eye-opening; I feel like a lot of the instrumental embellishments themselves are participating in a sort of subtextual interaction with the lyrics of each song. Sort of like the orchestral parts in Ys, but across the entirety of each element in the record, in diverse ways.. here are some examples:

harmonic landscapes- on all of the songs, perhaps most noticeably Goose Eggs and Divers, it seems like each change from chord to chord provides a lot of context for what's being said, adding a different 'colour' to the lyrics- each line of the 'chorus' section in Goose Eggs gain so much resonance from what's happening around it musically- like 'and I had better find my way/ to being the kind of friend you seemed to need in me/ at last, at least', goes from wistful optimism, to crestfallenness, to utter urgency in a matter of moments, and don't even get me started on the 'I dream it every night-' part of Divers..

compositional voices & counterpoint- the dynamics between the bass and treble components of the piano parts in Sapokanikan, Waltz and Time are just incredible- in Sapokanikan it feels like an interplay between this very imposing sort of bass presence, as the higher part runs about across time. And then the two merge in 'do you love me? will you remember?'- I think it's interesting that the melody from that part finds itself transposed to a ghostly celestia later on, in 'above them, parades..', as the higher piano part offers some rare block chords (which I've interpreted to express quiet outrage, but that might just be me). And then the piano in 'I had a dream..' section of Waltz, so perfect, it feels like a story in itself. Across all of the songs, the bass and treble parts tend to unify and integrate over the most universal messages (eg. most of the things I say, 'love is not a symptom of time; time is just a symptom of love').

falling bass lines- Leaving the City and A Pin-Light Bent each feature a similar descending bass line, taking three steps down- I think it serves a very specific purpose in both. In A Pin-Light Bent I sort of imagine myself falling and reaching the ground with each descent- this fits well with each line of attending lyric, too : 'my life comes and goes'; then it changes completely in 'but the sky', and it still feels like falling, but from a slow motion, first-person perspective (if that makes any sense). In Leaving the City it feels like a rallying against what one is allowed in line with the messages of that song.

polyrhythms- to me these serve to convey some sense of discord across Divers- in Leaving the City, The Things I Say, possibly the title track and of course Time. Significantly, the joyful, life-affirming title track welcomes the polyrhythmic crescendo, embracing it in an epic declaration- ascending, willing the eternal return.

droning synths or mellotrons- these occur in a few of the songs, most notably Same Old Man- I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on what they represent.

This post was much longer than intended, I could keep writing about this album indefinitely, it's my favourite of all time. Does anybody have any favourite moments in the mix, or thoughts on the instrumental voices in the songs? To me it feels like it's all serving a communicative purpose in some way, and I'd be very interested to see what others have picked up on- music can be so subjective, and I'm still joyfully noticing new details each time.

Re: Instrumental embellishments as a subtext

PostPosted: 07 Dec 2016, 16:14
by Steve
Thank you for this wonderful set of posts, Impossible Birds! These are the sorts of articles that I've missed with the dwindling numbers on MM, but which I doubt could find a home on FB. You've wrapped your enthusiasm for Divers in a scholarly and very informative appraisal, and refreshingly perfect grammar, in it.

I don't have the expertise to add much to your analysis, but you make a couple of points that I can relate/ respond to.

The mix (in line 1). Now I re-read this I suspect you mean mix of ideas, emotions, instrumentations. But I first tooknit to mean the audio mix, and that struck me as unique from the very first notes of Anecdotes: it sounds like nothing else in the "pop" world, and there is an amazing clarity in the way her unusual choice o f instruments are each picked out and given their 'space'.

Favourite moments in the mix (last paragraph): The whole of the title track. It exhibits the most perfect demonstration of the point I made above, somehow blending a number of instruments into a 'wall of sound' that differs from the 'Spectoresque' version in that each instrument, each note, is distinguishable while still contributing in a subtle way to the totality of the sound. To me it also sounds like is is gradually speeding up throughout, which gives it an urgency, even though there are of course points where it eases back, but these seem to be disguised. I am so pleased that this is a long song: in my mind, the repeated line "A woman is alive" marks the beginning if the end, but there's still a good minute and a half still to come. Delicious!

Re: Instrumental embellishments as a subtext

PostPosted: 09 Dec 2016, 08:46
by Impossible birds
Thank you for reading and for your thoughtful response Steve, it's heartening to know there are other milkymooners still out there. The 'wall of sound' in Divers is indeed a wonder, never heard anything like it before. I'm still trying to figure out what's happening rhythmically in some of the more intense sections of that song, and the lyrics are slowly revealing themselves. I can totally relate about the first notes of Anecdotes; I still remember hearing it for the first time, how perfect it was, and just realising that this was something important.

But yeah I think what I was trying to get at in this post was the idea that the mix, and the production, and just the whole space that's created by these songs serves a communicative function in some way. I think it was in the Rookie interview when Joanna mentioned that the mix and production phase sort of felt like an extension of the writing process for this record, and to me at least, there seem like some definite clues. The audible inhale after 'lost in obsolescence' adds an entirely new ontological layer to Sapokanikan's narrative, for example. It recontextualises itself somehow. The pitchfork review might've said that this record wasn't a puzzle to crack, but I do believe it's the work of a genius who has a bunch of important things to share with her audience, and the musical/production cues seem like a viable path to understanding. Time will tell!

Re: Instrumental embellishments as a subtext

PostPosted: 16 Dec 2016, 19:08
by under a CPell
Very interesting to think about all this! What I myself have noticed, or rather feel, because I don't have the theoretical musical knowledge to back it up, is that there seem to be a lot of "circular" or "spiralling" musical motifs all over the album, which I think reference the cyclical nature of life and the album itself. Also the droning "spinning" sound in Anecdotes and Same Old Man has the same function I believe.

Re: Instrumental embellishments as a subtext

PostPosted: 18 Dec 2016, 19:35
by Adam
I agree, the detail in the recordings is remarkable. It was only looking at the liner notes after a few listens that I realised just how many different instruments are used on the album. "Goose Eggs", for example has just "five glorious seconds of Hammond B3 organ" credited in the liner notes. I must admit though, I haven't listened in one sitting on a good pair of headphones for quite a while.

Under a Cpell, you beat me to it, but I was also going to say about how much sampling there is on the album. It isn't really talked about much, but the 'chopper' sounds you mentioned, and the birdcalls, are the two obvious ones I can think of. And it's a detail that only comes out on good equipment.

The synth part of "Leaving the City" was one of my favourite moments of the album on early listens. You mentioned the marxophone, Impossible birds -- many of the synths on the album are I believe somewhat vintage, so it is even more of a testament to the recording process that it managed to get these rather primitive instruments sounding at home next to concert harps and violins.

I looked up an interview that Newsom did with Stereophile, which is quite interesting in that in the second half at least, she talks about the recording process for the album in detail not printed anywhere else I've seen. This is one part:

[On Divers], there's a lot that unites the songs, and there are a lot of threads that run through them, narratively and harmonically, and so I really wanted to balance that, I guess, with an instrumental palette that just varied constantly, not only in terms of the instrumentation but in terms of the character of the instrumentation. It's not just about having different instruments on each song. It's about compositional voices varying, 'cause every composer or arranger treats the violin a little differently. Although that's a little reductive in and of itself, because he or she might treat the violin differently not only based on who he or she is, but also based on what the song is, and what the conversations are that we've had. There are so many variables, but the main thing is that I wanted each song to inhabit its own specific world. I wanted the air to smell different. I wanted the quality of the light to be different. I wanted the ground to feel different underfoot.