Change is good!

This choice once again showed the slightly dark side of my sense of humour, as my friend was about to embark on round 2 of their cancer treatment and begin injecting themselves with more chemicals. But it was also a throwback to the late ‘90s club scene and an opportunity to let your mind be taken over for a few minutes in this all-absorbing, slightly uncomfortable, but hypnotic piece.

How do they do that?

So, what is it about this piece that makes it so absorbing and hypnotic? I’m going to focus on the harmonic simplicity and use of variations. By harmonic simplicity I mean it uses very few chords. In fact it’s pretty much all on one chord, but even where it moves momentarily to a second chord it retains a drone (a continuous note that plays throughout a piece) that keeps it grounded in the original chord. I mentioned drones in my first ever blog piece about “Heroin, by The Velvet Underground” and it is no coincidence that both these pieces have a resultant hypnotic feeling - it’s a musical effect that always works. But using a single chord and drone could quickly become dull if the music around it were just as repetitive. The structure is repetitive - an instrumental only verse like section followed by a chorus where the title words to the song are half spoken, half sung and back to instrumental again. However, each time those broad sections repeat, there are variations. Here are just a few to listen out for:

Opening chorus - high-pitched, squealing drone that is quite uncomfortable to listen to.

First instrumental - keeping the interest high (in the treble), rhythmic woodblock tapping out an energetic heartbeat.

Next chorus - new chord with a brightening effect and swelling of the drone note now in a lower register. The woodblock from the instrumental is retained to keep the sections connected and leads us into the next instrumental.

Instrumental - introduces a tardis-like pulsing, followed by an agitated, rising note sequence

Chorus - changes chord as previously, adds a new high note squeal and then starts to break up the percussion rhythms.

You can play a fascinating game of “spot the difference” throughout the nearly five minutes of this piece (reduced to three and half minutes if you are watching the video). And I suppose that is why our interest as a listener is maintained even if we weren’t consciously thinking about the variations. Our brains like repetition and familiarity, but are also stimulated by change.

Hope you enjoy it or feel inspired to listen to something new today.

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