The End is Just Another Beginning

Since this is my launch, I've decided to add a second post to this blog, on the first day of my new music blog. The song I'm writing about here is an instrumental, They Move On Tracks of Never-Ending Light by This Will Destroy You.

If you're anything like me in that when you get into a song, you put it on repeat and listen to it over and over again to really feel it, then you'll notice that the song is a journey - a linear journey, really. You start in one place - a dark and lonely place - but you end up in a very different place - a light, free and peaceful serenity. This is a somewhat subtle effect since the whole song moves at a fairly moderate pace - not too fast, not too slow (maybe a little on the slow side) - for about seven minutes, so if you just let yourself go with it, you may forget from whence you came. It becomes obvious, however, if you have it on "repeat" and end up back at the beginning moments after the end - then you really can feel the volume of spacetime through which the piece carried you.

The other part of the song you might notice is the perpetual looping of short(ish) riffs/melodies or long, sustained chords. They layer on top of each other, seamlessly moving from one to the next via overlap. It's this quality that makes me think that I could not only write something similar, but also play it live using a looping machine and syncing it to a digital multi-track player such as Garageband. But it doesn't sound cheap or amateur - more minimalistic and inspirational (well, inspirational to me in that I am inspired to write and perform similarly). I tend to like minimalism, too. In fact, one of my own influences is Steve Reich, one of the original "minimalists" and experimental musicians. This song may have influences from him as well, at least in the musical, collective consciousness.

Another interesting point to make, and link to Steve Reich, is the clear use of the reverse-loop which runs through the end of the piece. This is a technique first developed by the early electronic, experimental musicians, such as Reich, in which you make a tape loop, then you flip it so that it plays in the reverse direction. Clearly, its resulting sound is dramatically different from the forward play, and one thing you notice is the way tones go from being spread out to a more punched, singular peak, then end suddenly. It's hard for me to articulate what I mean but imagine it like this (since sound is composed of waves): when you stick your finger in a still pond and cause at first just one dip, which then ripples out to form multiple archs and crests, the concentric circles or waves get smaller in amplitude and more spread out from each other as they move away from where you stuck your finger in the pond - that's how a sound would work in the forward direction, too, but if you were to imagine it going from being spread out to refining into a point, well that's what sound is like when played in the reverse. It's an easy-enough thing to pick out once you recognize it. The technique, as simple as it is, is employed in many, if not most, popular music today. However, today, of course, people don't use the old-fashioned tape loops - they use digital loopers which, with a button or switch, can easily reverse it or perform any number of digital manipulations to it (a.k.a. digital effects). In fact, the sound can be very similar to the sound of bowed string instruments, which is also employed in this piece. The difference is in the "attack" (initial striking of the note), or lack thereof in bowed string instrumentals, whereas for a reverse tape loop, you can hear the attack, but it's at the end of the note rather than the beginning. I'd imagine that only a trained ear would be able to discern the difference between a forward and reverse loop of a really long, sustained note played by a bowed string instrument.

There's a clear turning point in the piece, I believe, which is when the guitar riff seems to get stuck in a two note loop for an extended period of time, then some soothing synth chords come in, sounding a bit like bowed notes, then the beat finally arrives. The drum beat is not dramatic but it's colorful enough that it feels like it picks up the pace of the piece. Then it cuts out again and the next guitar riff/melody that develops and loops for the rest of the piece is clearly much more hopeful sounding than the previous riff/melody. For one, it's more than just a two-note riff, it steps down a few notes, then climbs up a couple, as if to say, "you mean, like this? This is how you pick yourself back up again?"

That's how I feel at the end of the piece, kind of humbled, kind of relieved, kind of optimistic, but not overly. I feel like, "ok, I'll try."

The trick is: don't repeat the piece after that because then you go back to the beginning...to that place where you felt hopeless.