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perceived complexity & polyrhythm

It's probably common knowledge,

but I find one of the most pleasing aspects of dance music to be the creation of complexity through the careful layering of its parts that creates non-existent, yet perceived rhythmic structures, melodies, basslines, harmonies, etc.

It just blows my mind every time I hear a track put together in such a way, where when you listen carefully and analyze a sound that you at first find insanely complex, you can break it down into very simple yet effectively layered and/or compressed parts.

tracks that you think are one thing and with a simple yet critical adjustment to the mix transform into another entirely

basslines which sound like they change when the rest of the track drops out but are in reality identical

it can be said that all tracks do this to some degree, whether the intention of the producer or not, but there are definitely those which you can tell have been carefully mixed so as to create these phenomenal aural and corporal experiences...sounds which are mere ghosts and traces created through the juxtaposition of others. (incredibly important in architecture and visual art as well)

i've personally found the best dance music to be dance music with many many hidden rhythms, tracks deeply saturated with syncopated rhythms, in which each person in the crowd can find his or her own groove, which is why i can't stand kick-heavy, big-beat style dance music - it takes all of the freedom and pleasure away from dancing. is the best unity on a dancefloor when everyone is bouncing to the same beat, or is it a more beautiful unity when everyone is in their own groove yet inextricably rhythmically connected?

Please list any tracks you know that behave like this!

I will post a more thorough list when I am at my home computer with my collection but for now I'd just like to mention

Cristian Paduraru - Born Again

It's not the most (phenomenally) complex example, but I've had the opportunity to remix this track, which I find very beautiful and included in my latest mix, and when I received the files I realized how utterly simple it was and how carefully the sounds had been crafted so that when layered something entirely new was generated.

side note - i also find this to be one of the principle goals of 'mixing' as in deejaying: that is, through the mix develop these ephemeral and phenomenal rhythms and melodies by carefully placing the different tracks against one another.

deep shit.
ive had a tune where i heard something that really wasnt there, and enjoyed it.
but i dont remember what tune it was.
so oh well.

I agree with pretty much everything you said.

Also, I think this is why subtlety is key in this kind of music. I can't stand anything with big heavy kick drums and beats that just go 'UNN-TSS-UNN-TSS-UNN-TSS-UNN-TSS'. It needs layers. Base drums yes, but other stuff in between too.

take this into consideration also, the old funk records were and still are phenomenal because everything was played live. The drums, the bass, the guitars, everything was pushing and pulling, the rhythm was changing and that was the beauty of it, the imperfection.

now, these carefully crafted tracks are nice i like some of them too but i find them too... too... too planned. and believe me, mistakes far more memorable than perfections.

when a dj fucks up, everyone remembers him and more people talk about him rather than a dj who is flawless.

Using a mistake musicaly and intentionally takes skill, i would mention james holden here who amongst others is one of the best in this.

Re: perceived complexity & polyrhythm

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec basslines which sound like they change when the rest of the track drops out but are in reality identical

sidechain compression?



i admire people who have mastered eq shelving to the point where they can make anything work together, sonically. example of this are andy page, telefon tel aviv, and sander van doorn.

i also wish i understood compression as much as prydz does.

the biggest amazement to me is almost the opposite of what you are talking about. the producer that have mastered "taking up space" in a mixdown...boards of canada are great at this. prydz is too. very very few elements, but each element is eqed and compressed to take up all available space to where 5 or 6 layers sound like 50.

quote:

sidechain compression?

well that will do it for sure, but i'm more interested in the simple layering and serendipitous creation of a perceived complexity. but yes, sidechain compression makes this more apparent and complex, especially when the sounds are similar enough to where they start to move like one bassy monster

Nice topic. So, its apparent perception of music rather then actual one. In melodic trance when the bassline and the lead-line play side by side and then the bassline changes e.g. arpeggiates playing corresponding notes in different frequencies, i get the impression that the melodic lead-line on top changes as well (whereas in reality it doesn't). The same can happen with the pads as well. A classic example is Solid Globe's "Sahara" in which after two repetitions of the lead-line the bass-line and the pads play lower notes and the lead-line sounds somehow different without actually changing.



A lot of stuff in music are apparent though rather then actual. According to perceptual psychology there are Gestalt laws (more like heuristics) that organise both the visual and auditory environments. In music, the location of sounds as well the similarity of pitch and timbre are crucial. E.g. when there is a single sequence of high and low alternating notes, at high speeds it will be perceived as two streams playing high and low notes respectively rather then one. The effect is old and it was heavily used in the time of the Baroque composers e.g. by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart etc. (and by the 20th century minimalists as well). Ofcourse this happens all the time and this is why we can perceive the bass and the melody in isolation rather then a blob of sounds and notes, and this is also why we can distinquish between simultaneous conversations in the first place (with allocation of attention being the second). So similarity, proximity and continuation of sounds in space and time are crucial for the perceptual organisation of music and sound in general.

With all this talking i remembered one of my old favorite deep and dubby minimal techno producers- Fluxion. Fluxion belongs to the 90s deep basic-channel school of techno and his works are comprised by polyrhythmic, very detailed hypnotic structures. I always got strange impressions by his tracks such as when the rhythm would somehow change but i wouldn't notice when that happened. It has all these small detailed changes going-on and you get the impression that the music somehow contains subliminal messages or something. Another thing with his tracks (and generally most of the tracks of the Basic Channel label)is that if you focus your attention to each of the rhythms and/or sounds you perceive the track differently. This is what i get anyway (and i'm not into drugs). Anyway i found some samples in juno but these tracks need to be listened from start to finish.



Fluxion- "Lark"

http://mp3.juno.co.uk/MP3/SF34502-01-01-01.mp3



Fluxion- "Pendulous"


http://mp3.juno.co.uk/MP3/SF40673-01-04-01.mp3


Fluxion- "Opaque"


http://mp3.juno.co.uk/MP3/SF40673-01-04-02.mp3


Fluxion- "Hiatus"

http://mp3.juno.co.uk/MP3/SF40673-01-03-01.mp3

quote:

Originally posted by PETRAN when there is a single sequence of high and low alternating notes, at high speeds it will be perceived as two streams playing high and low notes respectively rather then one. The effect is old and it was heavily used in the time of the Baroque composers e.g. by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart etc.

great example of this is Organ Fugue (i think by Bach, i feel really bad i dont know that)

Re: Re: Re: perceived complexity & polyrhythm

quote:

Originally posted by hadi ****** +1. haha, sometimes when i am trying to mix down a track or master it, i listen to an eric prydz song to try and compare (of course i cant) but i am amazed at how he gets that sound and how clean it all sounds, fuckin hard to do i also love picking apart layers while listening to songs.

i quit trying to figure out what trickery he uses when someone told me all he uses is logic plugins...hes just on some different plane of understanding when it comes to sound.

another thing hes good at is introducing the right element at the right time, much like a really good dj plays the right record at the right time. prydz keeps you interested in the track just long enough not to get bored and then introduces something very simple that totally blows you away for some reason.

hes mastered the art of "tension" when it comes to the dance floor.

@petran - i'm at work right now but your response looks very interesting and i want to put some thought into it so i will listen later



totally agreed about the right element at the right time. it's all about timing.

even when you watch good top 40 deejays the key thing you notice is not a technical skill or a particularly good taste in music, but damn, they know how to time records!

on a production level, I really like music that seems to be the same but in reality has changed without you knowing and when you finally realize it you realize it has also changed. it's like a dream where nothing is really clearly defined - you wake up, you can't say exactly where you have been or what you did, you have a good idea of specific random things, but as for any connection, you have no idea what happened or howyou possibly mediated between the two states...

i like music that holds off and holds off until you just can't stand it anymore and then changes slightly and thus the change becomes nearly of infinite importance. it can be one semitone, it can be an adjustment of 1 decibel to a bassline, it can be the absence of a tonic, or the absence of a beat that the listener once relied on, it can be the addition of a a tiny reverberent panning clave or a light hat pitter patter

Marco Carola - Apnea

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec on a production level, I really like music that seems to be the same but in reality has changed without you knowing and when you finally realize it you realize it has also changed. it's like a dream where nothing is really clearly defined - you wake up, you can't say exactly where you have been or what you did, you have a good idea of specific random things, but as for any connection, you have no idea what happened or howyou possibly mediated between the two states...

That's one of the basic characteristics of a lot of ambient, the long-form droning/textural/soundscape type in particular. Slow subtle changes over long periods of time, no harsh sounds, no sharp contrasts, nothing dramatic. Usually when i've listened to an album, made up of one or a few long tracks, i don't realize it's finished until a few minutes after the end. After a few minutes of silence i realize "oh, there's no more music". It's so smooth it merges seamlessly in and out of silence.

quote:

Originally posted by SMC That's one of the basic characteristics of a lot of ambient, the long-form droning/textural/soundscape type in particular. Slow subtle changes over long periods of time, no harsh sounds, no sharp contrasts, nothing dramatic. Usually when i've listened to an album, made up of one or a few long tracks, i don't realize it's finished until a few minutes after the end. After a few minutes of silence i realize "oh, there's no more music". It's so smooth it merges seamlessly in and out of silence.

Yeah, but thats probably because its so slow and repeatetive that your attention can't help to wander, only to realise minutes later when attention switches back that there is no music lol. But yeah the fact that the music itself is slow and gentle with not much going helps to make you wander, or rather, induces a kind of "entrancing habituation" (hmmm i liked that).

So, Stars of the Lid, Windy and Carl, Eluvium, Rich, Lustmord, Lull, some Labradford, Biosphere... (and yes steve roach but i'm not mentioning him for obvious reasons...) are all good aren't they?


Labradford- "Scenic Recovery"

http://www.brainwashed.com/common/s...ic_recovery.mp3

(although this has some stuff going with the violins and stuff...)

Windy and Carl- "Undercurrent"

http://www.brainwashed.com/common/s...ndercurrent.mp3

(this is a good example of what you are talking about).


Stars of the Lid- "Music for Twin Peaks Episode 30 part 2"

http://www.brainwashed.com/common/s...-twin_peaks.mp3

(this is another good example)

Biosphere's "Substrata" was also a great ambient album in that style as well . I doubt though that many people in this forum will like such music.

Nefardec, I know exactly what you're talking about. I think about it all the time.

Simply put: tracks which sound the same the whole way through, perhaps using the same melody for 5 whole minutes, yet are still interesting the whole time.

Chock Full Of Nutts - Got To Be Free is a good example. It uses the same hook for the whole song, yet stays awesome. Love it.

I think Petter of "Some Polyphony" and "Untight" fame is good at this trick too. His layering of elements is very precise.

quote:

Originally posted by PETRAN Yeah, but thats probably because its so slow and repeatetive that your attention can't help to wander, only to realise minutes later when attention switches back that there is no music lol. But yeah the fact that the music itself is slow and gentle with not much going helps to make you wander, or rather, induces a kind of "entrancing habituation" (hmmm i liked that).

Sure, and when the music is completely devoid of rhythm i would even say it's "steady" rather than repetitive. Like a line _______________ compared to something that can be equally entrancing but is rhythmic . . . . . . . . . . It engulfs you and let's you wander at the same time. Like a sphere that is exciting to be in but is also big enough for you to move around. I could sit all night thinking of metaphores but i always end up quoting Eno's immortal words:

"Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."

So many times i've listened to something and thought of those words and felt like "this is exactly what he meant".

quote:

Lustmord

Some of his music is terrifying, scares the shit out of me. I gave a bunch of Lustmord to a friend of mine who's into ambient aswell, and i jokingly coined the term "death ambient".

quote:

(and yes steve roach but i'm not mentioning him for obvious reasons...)

Good, i have a monopoly on anything concerning Steve Roach. :P No but seriously, he's a legend.

quote:

Labradford- "Scenic Recovery" http://www.brainwashed.com/common/s...ic_recovery.mp3 (although this has some stuff going with the violins and stuff...) Windy and Carl- "Undercurrent" http://www.brainwashed.com/common/s...ndercurrent.mp3 (this is a good example of what you are talking about).

I'm not familiar with these two but the samples sound really awesome, i will take a closer look at both for sure. I really like this type of ambient borderland post-rock stuff which makes clever use of traditional instruments, like guitars and violin here (i have a soft spot for solo violin).

quote:

Biosphere's "Substrata" was also a great ambient album in that style as well . I doubt though that many people in this forum will like such music.

Yes! Substrata is a fuckin masterpiece, it's an album i like to listen to cranked up quite loud. It's so atmospheric and there is also quite a lot of diversity within the album in terms of timbre and sound design. It's one of my favorites for sure, and so is Biosphere among artists.



Maybe we're hijacking the thread a little now, but what the hell.

Excellent thread

3 CD's that i like picking apart each layer in the tracks are

1)Sasha - Airdrawndaggar
2)Tiesto - ISOS 3
3)Danny Howells 24:7 Disc 1

quote:

Originally posted by PETRAN In melodic trance when the bassline and the lead-line play side by side and then the bassline changes e.g. arpeggiates playing corresponding notes in different frequencies, i get the impression that the melodic lead-line on top changes as well (whereas in reality it doesn't). The same can happen with the pads as well. A classic example is Solid Globe's "Sahara" in which after two repetitions of the lead-line the bass-line and the pads play lower notes and the lead-line sounds somehow different without actually changing.

isnt this what is called 'chord progressions'?


monolake and Robert Henke's ambient also has alot of what nefardec described, I think.

also try to check out a guy called "Portable" aka "Bodycode" - I cant get enough of his rhythmic patterns and the way he kind of challeges rhythm and groove with the samples he uses

thanks for the Fluxion recommendation btw


thumbs up at topic!

yeah definitely know what you are saying about bodycode...

i think petran is describing something more complex than chord progressions - where the bassline changes and thus way in which the separate waveforms create positive and negative interference changes, intensifying and dulling certain frequencies, giving the illusion that both are actually changing.

Re: perceived complexity & polyrhythm

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec It's probably common knowledge, but I find one of the most pleasing aspects of dance music to be the creation of complexity through the careful layering of its parts that creates non-existent, yet perceived rhythmic structures, melodies, basslines, harmonies, etc. It just blows my mind every time I hear a track put together in such a way, where when you listen carefully and analyze a sound that you at first find insanely complex, you can break it down into very simple yet effectively layered and/or compressed parts. tracks that you think are one thing and with a simple yet critical adjustment to the mix transform into another entirely basslines which sound like they change when the rest of the track drops out but are in reality identical it can be said that all tracks do this to some degree, whether the intention of the producer or not, but there are definitely those which you can tell have been carefully mixed so as to create these phenomenal aural and corporal experiences...sounds which are mere ghosts and traces created through the juxtaposition of others. (incredibly important in architecture and visual art as well)

Nicely said man. I was actually tinking about something similar to that while listening to James Zabiela today.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec yeah definitely know what you are saying about bodycode... i think petran is describing something more complex than chord progressions - where the bassline changes and thus way in which the separate waveforms create positive and negative interference changes, intensifying and dulling certain frequencies, giving the illusion that both are actually changing.

It's not complex at all, it's called oblique motion and it's about the most simple thing you can do with a melody and a bassline.

sorry i meant like the topic title - "perceived to be complex". it is quite simple really

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec sorry i meant like the topic title - "perceived to be complex". it is quite simple really

I see.

The track that dominates this idea for me in that it both implements it and is perfectly aligned with my own music preferences has been for many years

Push - Tranzy State of Mind (club mix)

It seems ridiculously busy in terms of the number of separate paths each synth is taking, but everything is perfectly timed so that nothing is competing with anything else.


You can choose to focus on any sound you want and the other sounds will complement it. It's an amazing effect.

This is the best thread i've read on here for a long time. I've been thinking about this sort of stuff a lot quite recently.

+1.
Very interesting thread. I'm actually in the process of writing a "thesis" that focuses on the subtle, yet complex intricacies that go into DJing, specifically a DJ set.
Most of us wouldn't doubt that the Internet has allowed electronic music to explode in popularity, along with it comes explosion of exposure and accessibility. This is central in pushing DJs to push the music, making the DJ set somewhat of a "business card" rather than the good old demo: anybody can string together songs in a sequence, but doing it right, and with creativity takes something else, which I'm sure many of us agree on. Add to that the exponential increase in "competition"(because of the Internet), the importance of exposing new sounds and styles becomes more significant than ever.
Recognizing the elements that comprise a set as a whole allows us to further explore and give more significance to the mechanics that characterize the dynamics of a set: rhythm, tempo, textures, timing, melody, harmonics, contrasts, etc. This is what I'm writing about, and would love to quote and possibly gain some insight into this topic if people are willing to.
Anyways, back to the topic..check out:
Lusine - Make It Easy(John Tejada remix)
There's so much subtlety in this song: that bulging bass swinging against the atmopsheric and glitchy patterns on top...the leading melody seems to pull the rest of the song with it without dragging, but by being slick and gentle. Marvelous production.

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