Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontakte

Kontakte starts with a scattered series of chiming. Then proceeds to produce a shaking back and forth. The volume and tempos change sporadically in no obvious pattern or logical matter. Then a rough scratching and distant grumbling. Followed by a series of squawaking and more chiming. The noise slowing begins to speed up with a variation of more high-pitched chiming, shaking and pitter-pattter. A quick crescendo and decrescendo repeated several times and then a few dramatic notes played. The song then repeats more quiet chimes and is followed by a dramatic change of volume, tempo and a deep lowering of pitch. Then a circling variation of pitch which accelerates and decelerates. Then the volume fades out to the end of the piece. How can a piece contain such sounds that when standing alone are rough to the ear, but when put together seem to flow quite well?

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Hymnen Region 1

Region 1 of Stockhausen's Hymnan starts with a series of bright chirps and squeals, oscillating in pitch and descellerating to paint a sonic backdrop for the introduction organic sounds and splashes of color descending from a pallette of white noise. As familiar, human sounding features enter the mix it becomes strangely unsettling: the familiarity of these tones is too sharp a contrast from the randomized naturalism of the wholely original static. When the peace finally cuts out after some minutes of this it reenters with a short, level vocal rhythm that gives way to enthusiastic, nationalistic anthems that almost orient the listener into a realm of percieving our own world, a mix of prideful congregations of humans. However, as glistening twinkles of distorted tones and playful static reinvade, they pull us suddenly away from this familiar territory and into a spacey, futuristic disorientation in audio space. When the sound work eventually returns to human sounds around minute eleven it is no longer recognizable and the layers of humanity have been reversed and layered so as to render the commonality of human speech foriegn and unnatural, ultimately stacking into a sort of audio babble the finally climbs to a culmination of more nationalistic melodies. These melodies, this time around, have an added audio context due to the material that reintroduced them that grants the listener perspective to percieve them as if from afar, a physical notion reinforced by the reintroduction of spacey sounds that just before minute fifteen begin to scratch and then tear us, seperating us as listeners from the human-like sounds across an audio gulf of gurgling robotic signals. These gain strength while the anthems fade away until the reintroduction of a familiar radio scan from silence, for the fourth time, leaves the listener with the question of why the set of sounds we consider language can be percieved to render so much meaning. After all, if the essential qualities and tambor of it can be maintained while perverting it so far that it meshes more with random intersteller tones, how much more poignently comforting is the meaning encapsulated in the familiar symphonies of human speech?

Dan Pemberton - Phoenix

The sonorous form starts quietly with a deep, metallic sound; it begins to rotate and oscillate with increasing fervor. As it progresses the sound crescendos and swells, folding back on itself and growing with each added reverberation. A sharp, breathy exhale punctuates the hollow metal swelling, which now begins to grow darker and thicker; some barely audible ascending sound bytes trickle into the mix. The metal reverberation suddenly catches on itself and stutters, pounding and throbbing inside the piece with the discomfort of a hangover. Gradually the pulsing fades out to allow an uplifting electric organ to take its place. The tranquil tones gently glide in and float upwards, playing a soft, slow melody and allowing itself, much like the disconcerting metal in the beginning of the track, to vibrate and fold back into itself, creating a chorus of ethereal voices. Eventually each voice decrescendos to silence one at a time, allowing the metal oscillations a small resurrection before fading out completely. The title of this track is Phoenix: does this piece aurally simulate the life cycle of this mythological creature?

Kraftwerk - The Man Machine

A taping starts to play with a rapid, hollow, crispness. But is quickly interrupted by the start of some great classical symphony only being played by electrical instruments out of a Mario brothers video game and the tapping is layered into the background. Flowing at a constant speed each section of the electronic Mario brothers orchestra getting its chance to play its own part and layer itself on top of its neighbor beat by beat patter by patter. Each section of the orchestra interacting with each other and playing off each other, building the structure of the beat in a monophony than homophony than polyphony type of way. Only to be slightly broken up by an unrecognizable at first synthesized, chopped, and stretched voice that comes out of the back ground and from underneath all the layers of the electronic orchestra playing to announce its dominance over all the different layers of the electronic Mario brothers orchestra.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel

The entrance of the song is very recognizable, through out the entire track the beat of Queens “Another One Bites the Dust” comes back when you think that the track is going into a different direction switching the rhythm and the beat it still reverts back. When it changes the tempo speeds up into something unrecognizable in the rest of the track with voices and beats unlike previously heard. The tempo is played around with and controlled sourly through the turntables, with a delay here and there. Clicks and clacks are heard in certain sections of the Grand Master verse. How can someone take turntables and a few sound bites from various artists and create something that sounds completely different from anything that was used in creating the track.

John Oswald - Dont

The easily recognizable sounds of Elvis fill the start of the song, but something is off about the background. The surroundings of the voice click and crackle; start and sputter off with a disjointed rhythm. Now Elvis is interrupting himself, with an echoing embrace of his words. The background is becoming stronger now, both in volume and constancy. And then it tempers off quickly to almost complete stillness and silence. A single, strong pitch wavers in the air for a moment before Elvis resumes, but quickly the different pitches and influxes in volume of the background smacks and clicks overwhelm the voice and my ears, toying with the original rhythm, but quickly losing its rhythm in the excitement. Then the barrage heightens, with overbearing timbre and ever-increasing tempo and volume, fighting with the Elvis’ voice, eventually winning the struggle and fading off into silence. How do the sounds of one of the most recognizable voices in history become drowned out by its own self in a chaotic battle of rhythm and volume?

Marvin Gaye - What's Happening Brother?

A well-worn rhythmic mechanism—effortlessly equalized, synchronized and syncopated—impels the sound forward with a self-assured, steady gait. There are luminous voices hovering above that seem impossibly distant. They are garnished with exuberant swells of horns, strings, and a tiny precious bell, almost overpoweringly effusive, for a centerpiece. Marvin’s lead vocal is imbued with a tender determination; its coarseness is charmed into clarity and its straining is seduced into something much sweeter. His voice is bound to the rhythm beneath by chains of cacophonous consonants, but stretches nobly, tonally upward toward the heavenly hosts singing “ooh” and “aah” above. The rising and falling of Marvin’s voice functions in a frustrated teeter-totter with these untouchably close singing sirens. It seems just as Marvin relinquishes his side of the struggle, cascading back into a tired sigh, the sonorous objects of his affection take notice and reach down towards him. The rhythm, meanwhile, remains indifferent to this antagonism and continues chugging along below it. Ultimately, it seems the consistency, between the song's words and sonic illustrations, is what serves it well in articulating a case for listeners to stop and consider 'what's happening?'