Very, VERY cool video! Enjoyed this very much. That’s something I’ve kinda done for years, reimagining straight rhythm riffs like Crazy Train as triplets instead of 8ths. Fun video!
Listening to Broken Cog is still very trippy even now. That opening riff just deceived you with the pattern. And then, the drums kicked in and all sense of rhythm instant collapsed. It really makes you go, "Wait, the pattern didn't go like that?! What?1?!"
I think Ligature Marks is one of their best songs off the new album. Pure filth. Continues to be rhythmically genius like practically anything they create.
Phantoms was probably my favourite. But saying that it isn't overly standout compared to the other tracks. Just like most of their discography it's an overall awesome album.
"God He Sees in Mirrors" is one pattern for the whole song!!! Surprised this song hasn't gotten more attention. No breaks in the pattern, the only song to have 1 pattern go the entire time without any resolution or change that doesn't happen naturally in the pattern in all of meshuggahs discography. Even when the rests occur the pattern remain unchanged underneath, where they join back up with the pattern once the rest ends. Undoubtedly my favorite on the album. There's a great video on RU-vid going through the visualization, strongly recommend.
This video - after all your previous Meshuggah videos - is an excellent primer to a lot of meshuggah-ness in general: Massive tension caused by ambiguity - resolved by a steady snare.
The opening of alan Parsons projects 'I robot' does something similar, where the bass synth comes in but it's hard to place, and then when the back beat comes in it actually manages to shift the way you hear it without the line actually changing
Fu**! So this is what I was trying to describe. In some places I couldnt find the "time-keeping cymbal" and latched myself to a chug, then I realized that drums are actually doing a sick groove, I just had to understand it. So now, I listen to a "time-keeping groove" and its the sickest thing Ive heard in a LONG time.
Definitely why I tend to gravitate towards any music. I need that complexity. Earlier that would most often mean the process of making sense of what I'm hearing, and that's still a factor, but lately it's the same with harmony. Which is why I love Tigran so much. And Jacob Collier. And Meshuggah. And frikkin Joshua de la Victoria, Animals As Leaders and so on
When i first started to break down broken cog for myself, I too feel into the idea that the opening guitar riff was in straight 16trh notes. I found where the loop restarted and did the maths relative to 8 bars of 4/4 and the maths didnt add up. At which point i became very confused and listened to that intro riff over and over again thinking "what is going on" and the snare wasnt falling where it should be according to what i surmised. At some point i thought i heard Tomas accenting some triplets on the toms during the intro so i switched everything to 12/8 and calculated those number and in that moment of elation i leapt from my chair and just yelled "FUCK YOU GUYS, WHY HAVE YOU DONE ME LIKE THIS?" to think i was deceived so early on in the album by such an innocent sounding riff. Just thought id share.
The funniest part is that the riff is triplets but not a full bar, so it's like... 22/12, or something? And then it's 8 of that + a 16 quarternote triplet bar so 22 * 8 + 16 = 192 triplets, which is 16 bars.
This is the same thing.. but metal. Holy hell man I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you are the absolute best. Melding metal and shrodinger’s cat!?!? LOL and YES Thank you and don’t ever stop.
Your scientific explanation took me back to their song "In Death-Is Death. The pattern is exactly similar to what a cross product multiplication looks like. I don't know if Marten meant it that way but it is very sick realizing things like that.
I've been thinking a bit on this for some time, for harmony we have "tonal gravity" from George Russell's work on the Lydian Chromatic Concept. I postulate that there is a similar "backbeat gravity" for polymeter. When sufficient emphasis (ala Meshuggah) is placed on the quarter or eighth note pulse, one can immediately lock in to a 4/4 backbeat despite the surrounding complexity.
Your video presentation style & story telling method is extremely entertaining & memorable! It always makes showing my non-musician friends way easier! props!!!
Yes, the anticipation when introduced to an idea before the groove results in a massive reward, especially if on first listen the reveal is surprising enough to make you take note and want to return to the track again and again.
I also love the fact that you KNOW you'll never be fooled by that song again. That 'NEW' feeling. You head it for the first time, and I know that once I know the answer, that feeling will never repeat.
There are many things I am beginning to understand from your videos. THANK YOU! I have a disconnect though. For myself it’s easier to learn by constructing rather than deconstructing music. It would be great to see you walk though constructing some rythms in the future and I think that would help connect things into that “Oh wow, I finally get it’”
yep, that's typical Meshuggah alright. Like Alan Moore said, a good writer uses misdirection to make better writing. Same goes for Meshuggah. I remember when I first started listening to them, especially their older stuff, you start banging your head and then suddenly the beat just "breaks apart" and leaves you confused and a little shaken lol. Great vid as always
Between your videos and The Art of Drumming HQ, my understanding of musical rhythms has been greatly improved. Thank you for making such entertaining, informative content. \m/
You are making some great points in your conclusion about music being challenging. I feel this to be true in any art-form / medium. You articulated it well. Good stuff.
I can't feel the "Light the Shortening Fuse" pattern in 16th notes even with the backbeat. My mind latches onto it being in triplets and interprets the backbeat as an intricate snare pattern.
Fabulous aproach to this perspective/subjective rhythm phenomenon that is a kind of mistery in the space-time matrix, of wich the Shuggah boys are genuine wizards, and personally can't fin the way to explain, so, THANK YOU!!! 🤘🔥
It's funny it's saying Schrödinger's cat related to Meshuggah... I'm litteraly waiting on something to be revealed which is kind of all or nothing... also Meshuggah-related :')
Years ago when I roomed with maths students I remember debating with one of them that music rhythms exist in quantum states. They debated I was bullshit. Thanks for backing me up here Yogev!
@@YogevGabay Harmony is also. Think of the subdominant triad IV in a Mixo/Gospel (an F), then compare the supertonic triad II in a Phrygian-Major/Flamenco (an F), which are both the same chord transposed to the frequency, but wildly different when affected by their outside influences. (btw love your vids since forever MASSIVE THANKS!!)
My more musically educated friend sort of enlightened me of this occurrence. He called them ghost notes and having to headbang to what you don't hear instead of what you. Not so sure if that applies here, but it's how I began to grasp Meshuggah.
I still have trouble feeling both of these songs in their respective sub-beats. Broken Cog feels more like 3/4 than 4/4 with triplets, and the riff for Light the Shortening Fuse sounds like it's BEGGING to be felt as triplets. My brain still hasn't been able to hear them any other way. When I listen to them carefully it's obvious that my intuition is wrong but somehow I can't "unhear" the way I'm used to hearing them.
Dead and alive cat until you open the box and observe it. Some take it further and suggest the act of observing tiny sub atomic particles actually brings them into reality, that is Meshuggah is actually playing in triplets, sixteenths and quints until you listen and perceive one into reality.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Ivory Tower"'s beginning (TVSOR album) is constructed on an ambiguity - or a transition from a binary to a ternary backbeat isn't it ?
