Showing posts with label bass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bass. Show all posts

18 July 2015

Music Day - Darn Floor, Big Bite

Originally written January 2014.


I got Darn Floor - Big Bite for Christmas [2013]. I'm falling in love with this band all over again.

I've wanted this album for a while. As soon as you begin to integrate yourself into the DA fanbase, you hear nothing except how good this album is. Even the gorgeous Dig Here Said The Angel couldn't top it for a good cross-section of the fans.

The CD is available on their website, but due to the fact that I bought Dig Here three times (digital, CD, and vinyl) (the vinyl arrived the day before New Year's and HOLY DEUCE it is beautiful), plus the ¡Alarma! reissue, I had no money left for DFBB. I was okay with waiting, but until I did get the CD, I took a vow of Darn Floor celibacy.

See, when I first ordered the Vox Humana CD, I totally overdosed on Travelog, William Blake, and (It's The Eighties, So Where's Our) Rocket Packs on YouTube while waiting for it to arrive. When it finally did arrive, listening to it was sort of anticlimactic. Not because it's not a good album (I think I actually listen to Vox Humana the most, overall), but because I already knew what was coming. So I didn't want to ruin the album that so many called DA's masterpiece before I could actually listen to it all at once at my leisure (the same way I first got to experience the masterpiece that is Dig Here). So I didn't listen to any of the songs on YouTube, I didn't preview them on iTunes, I didn't read the lyrics on the Daniel Amos website. I wanted to know nothing about the album until I had it in my hands... whenever that might be.

Naturally, DFBB was at the top of my Christmas wish list (literally), and since I'm basically impossible to buy for, my family sticks pretty darn closely to that list. It wasn't too much of a surprise to unwrap that one. And there was much rejoicing (and answering of the question, "Darn Floor, Big Bite? What the heck kind of album title is that?").

I will restrain myself from fangirling over the entire album here (oh, but am I ever tempted...). Today I'll stick to one song -- the title track.

I have a question about this song: how was this not a monster hit? It is infectious, catchy, fun to listen to, catchy, deep, poetic, catchy, intense, and heck, it would even be a great karaoke song. Did I mention it's catchy? You can't not bop your head to this. Seriously, I'll listen to this once in the morning after breakfast and I'll be dancing to the darn thing all day long. It's great.

It starts out with an irresistible bass/drum rhythm. Baptists, turn away, for the beat menace has come to vex your soul. You will dance to this, whether you like it or not. (This is church-ese for 'This song grooves like a boss.') I love the swagger in Terry Taylor's vocal here, especially how it later gives way to questioning -- without losing the swagger.

I also like the lyrical structure of the song, especially that doubtful repetition of every third line of the verses: Do I know You now? Do I know You now?... Will You save me now? Will You save me now?... Could have been a dream; Could have been a dream...

The musical structure is amazing too. It starts with the bass groove and the drums, then for the pre-chorus, the rhythm changes into a rolling, warbling guitar line before stripping the sound back to drums and bass for the chorus. At the end, after the final chorus when Terry's repeating No I can't get it right... they start into a good old classic rock thing (complete with cymbals), then it concludes with a deep graceful bow.

Fantastic stuff. If you don't listen to anything else I feature on Music Day, listen to this one.

Title: Darn Floor - Big Bite
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: Darn Floor - Big Bite
Year: 1987
Label: Frontline
iTunes here; YouTube here.
Buy the deluxe two-disc edition of the album directly from the band here. (You won't regret it, I promise.)

Also, for those not familiar with Daniel Amos lore: The 'darn floor - big bite' theme of both this song and the album came from the story of Koko the gorilla, who, when asked to describe an earthquake, signed 'Darn floor. Big bite.' Inspired by this story, Daniel Amos/Terry Scott Taylor spent the entire DFBB album exploring the analogy of humans in Koko's place, trying to describe God with mere [sign] language. The results are quite stunning. The poetic value (of the lyrics) alone is breath-taking.

You touch my hair and cheek sometimes
Feel in yourself this flesh and blood
My poor flesh and blood...
I think I met an angel once
But I can't really know for sure
Do I know you now
Do I know you now?

13 March 2015

Music Day - Angel Falls

Named a novel after this one. I had been plotting the story and this song came on the Cephas Hour at the same time. (And your college English prof told you authors agonise over the meaning of any word, phrase, or title associated with their material. It's lies, I promise. Trust me… I'm an author. But I digress...)

When I first heard this song, I actually thought it was from the eighties (it's from 2013). The production totally does not sound overly loud, flat and generally obnoxious like most of today's songs -- and that, in my opinion, is a very good thing. Plus, that bassline (not necessarily eighties, just generally awesome).

The performer in me appreciates the loose theme -- a story of a girl being the star, the princess, all her dreams have come true… and the harsh reality in her quest for love, her loss of innocence. Thematically, it's ABBA's Thank You For The Music mini-musical meets Crumbächer's Jamie.

But ultimately the song is about a fall from grace. I think we can all relate to that.

Title: Angel Falls
Artist: Veil Of Ashes
Album: Eternal Teenage Angst
Year: 2013
Listen to and buy the song on Bandcamp here.

I needed this song tonight. I make my theatrical debut one week from today, as Mary Lennox (the main character) in The Secret Garden. This is the first official theatre production I've even been in, never mind in a lead role. It's a part I never honestly expected that I would get. I didn't think I was lead role material, especially since I didn't really have any acting experience at all. It's still surreal, and it's almost over.

We've been rehearsing this thing for a month and a half. Every night I fall farther behind on my homework, but I barely even notice or care because every night I've been surrounded by the magic of the stage. It's hard to describe to someone who's never experienced it. It's a totally different world on stage. We can get so totally wrapped up in that world that we forget reality (which is why I haven't been freaking out over the four papers I have to write this month). I especially identify with the subject of the song -- you get the sense that this is a previously unknown girl catapulted to fame, into a lead role. Sound familiar...? And then she falls -- in love? from grace? -- harder than she could have imagined. It's a little terrifying listening to these lyrics tonight even as I consider what I'm going to do with this newfound love of performing after I graduate next month.

13 June 2014

Music Day - Writer's Block

Before the triumphant Kickstarter project...

Before the long-awaited reunion of the band that wouldn't go away...

Before Dig Here Said The Angel...

...there was Writer's Block.

Even when Dig Here was first released, many (myself included) noted similarities between that project's sweeping, moody title track and this piece of brooding atmospheric goodness tucked away on Daniel Amos frontman Terry Scott Taylor's 1998 solo project.

The most striking similarity is the bass intro. Thick and moody. String arrangements lend a stately grace to both songs. Booming drums lend some solid ground even among the swirling low-end instrumentation.

Personally I like the lyrical theme in Writer's Block. The song seems to ruminate on a general feeling of helplessness in the background of day-to-day living despite having learnt how to 'work the system' a little (I've made an art of clever demonstrations... But can't exchange it for my occupation as a fallen cleric, chief of sinners, poor in spirit...). It's a general cry for grace. And, like most of Terry Taylor's output, I like the imagery in the lyrics: I paint a thousand pictures here... On the inside of my skull... Sometimes I crack it open... Though my instruments are dull... In the bridge you get a sense for just how skilled a vocalist Terry is, when he goes from near-guttural screaming to nailing a decently high note without so much as a breath between. Not bad for a guy who was in his mid-to-late forties at the time.

Title: Writer's Block
Artist: Terry Scott Taylor
Album: John Wayne
Year: 1998
Label: KMG Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Sweeping, rich, deep, and of course, honest. It's everything you could really ask for in a song.

08 November 2013

Music Day - My Frontier

I've been overdosing on this song as of late. I don't even know why... it's like when I was a kid, I would love songs to death, but people would ask me why I liked this song or that artist so much and I wouldn't be able to answer. I didn't know why I liked them, I just did. Nowadays my reasons for liking songs usually have something to do with the lyrics, the poetry, the vocal, or sometimes there's a certain instrument track or soaring climax that captivates me. But I don't actually know why I love this song so much. It captivates me and sends me through so many emotions, but I don't know what it is about the song that does that. Perhaps it's all of it as a whole -- all the instruments, the poetry, the vocal... this is DA, after all. There's a melancholy artistic feeling to the song. I think it's the feel of the whole general thing that gets me -- the sum greater than its parts, maybe?

I suppose I should talk about the specific attributes of the song here though, so you have a better idea what you're about to hear. I make no guarantees about my ability to put this into words though (trying to describe great music in writing is stinking difficult -- why do I keep doing it then? Probably because nobody listens to me when I talk out loud about music and I have to exercise my enthusiasm somewhere...).

It crashes in with a guitar... I don't know, chord? and then the jingling guitar creeps up and that wonderful solid bass line comes in -- thump thump thump. The whole song has kind of a sweeping, swirling, ethereal feel to it, and only the bass keeps it grounded. It really is timeless. It's the same sort of feeling that captured me way back when I was four and fell in love with the music of David Meece (specifically, the song This Time).

And the climax of the song gives me chills -- when the piano thunders in and Terry's voice grows higher and more earnest (he spends most of the song in a low smooth near-whisper). And for some reason I absolutely love the line Kick it apart; Kick the whole world apart... Don't know why.

Title: My Frontier
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: MotorCycle
Year: 1993
iTunes here; YouTube here.
Lyrics here.

Kick it apart
Kick the whole world apart and the
Night will absolve us
Wipe the slate clean
Maybe not for a lifetime
For just one day
Just one more day...

10 August 2013

Music Day

Seriously? I haven't featured this song yet?

This was the only track I initially liked from the album of the same name (though I thought Ritual was kind of cool too). White Heart hadn't rocked hard like this since Bye Bye Babylon.

Oh, it starts quiet enough... but at about the nineteen-second mark the drum kicks up and then the bass falls in, gritty, crunchy, and most of all loud, with a similarly styled guitar ripping across the top on the seventh beat (dance counts), then the sixth and eighth beats of the next phrase.

Two more sets of eight, and then Rick comes in -- an almost-menacing intimate whisper, the power of his voice just barely restrained as he sweeps up into I don't know your name...

A breath, and control returns, a delicate tip-toe melody now for You've been hanging around for so long at my place...

By the time he sings It's crawling back again to find me and slips up into a desperate near-scream on Get it out of my mind... the song has taken on a slightly creepy feel. 'It' is never explained, though looking at the context of the song I'm picturing something kind of like Lecrae's Indwelling Sin -- the old sinful man trying to regain control of the redeemed human, to the horror of said redeemed human.

I absolutely love the guitars in the chorus -- low, fuzzy, almost static-like. It's a smooth trade-off... the vocal in the verse was heavily processed, but in the chorus it's mostly organic. However, the guitar takes over the fuzzed-out sound, giving the song a subtle change of pace while still feeling consistent.

Then we get the two sets of eight from the beginning again. (Darn it, I'm listening like a choreographer. Brain apparently does not want to shift into music-enjoyment mode.)

Listening to this again, I think this is the lowest I've heard Rick's voice, right there at the beginning of the second verse. He's very dynamic on this song, actually. I'm surprised more people don't quote it as a favourite (because we all know White Heart songs live or die by how spot-on Rick was when they recorded the vocals -- at least the rock ones). He's in fine form here -- almost growling, a touch of sarcastic menace, then screaming high (the word 'wailing' is the closest synonym I have off the top of my head), and it's all done so smoothly. Nearly every line has a different dynamic, and you're hard-pressed to find the transitions. The line You know that's a lie is delivered in a way that calls to mind the fire from Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Christian nine years before, and yet there's a touch of sadness in it -- you know that pained feeling you get when you see someone you love being a total idiot and destroying some aspect of their lives when you know they know better? Yeah. It kind of sounds like he's watching something like that.

Regular readers know that usually I don't pay attention to guitar solos (that or I hate them with a passion... depends if I'm choreographing it or not), but this is a killer solo. The bass and the drums still play behind it, adding power to it, and (thank goodness) it's not one of these presumptuous guitar solos where they just kind of shoe-horned it into the song because every song needs a guitar solo, right? It changes directions partway through, going from straight up rock-guitar-solo to something a little more finessed but equally loud. As the song rocks on, hurtling with reckless abandon to its close, the guitar work becomes rather off-kilter. So now you've got a totally fuzzed-out, not-quite-centered guitar and Rick's clear angelic voice still throwing in some stuff over it. It's perfect.

And then it all comes to an abrupt end with the vocal sliding up and snapping delicately off into nothing and a reverberating guitar chord picking up where the vocal track leaves off, carrying the song to a suspenseful-yet-satisfying ending.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present... Inside.

Title: Inside
Artist: White Heart
Album: Inside
Year: 1995
Label: Curb Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Enjoy.

02 August 2013

Music Day

It's my birthday today and you know what that means... it's White Heart Month here at the Edge Of The Dream! (Provided, of course, that the iTunes Store actually has five White Heart songs that I haven't already featured.)

The other day I was listening to White Heart's Freedom album on my iPod. It's a totally different experience on the iPod -- headphones always make the mix sound better anyway, but this specific album is heaven on earth through headphones. Plus, this album just means so, so much to me -- track two, Sing Your Freedom, has gone down in this blog's history as the first piece of choreography I ever completed, Eighth Wonder holds the distinction of being the first piece of my choreography to be publicly performed, and the phenomenal opener Bye Bye Babylon was the song that catapulted White Heart firmly into the slot of 'My Favourite Band Ever Of All Time.' I listen to my CD copy of the album that I ripped from my mother's well-loved cassette at least twice a week, probably more.

I rarely listen to it on my iPod though. Usually I listen to my iPod when choreographing a specific song, and I tend to listen to full albums on CD as I'm driving places in the rattletrap.

However, Freedom is different on the iPod not because of sound quality, but because of the tracklist. As I mentioned, my Freedom CD was originally a tape. Then, several months after I created it, I found out that the original CD release of the album had an extra track sandwiched in between The River Will Flow and Let It Go, a track which I assume was excluded from the cassette and vinyl releases due to time constraints (though don't quote me on that). iTunes had the track (for once -- pause while we give sarcastic applause), but I'd already burned the CD and didn't want a perfectly good CD to go to waste. So I still listen to the cassette version but because I'm a purist, I have the official CD tracklist on the iPod.

So the other day as I was listening to the album on my iPod, I suddenly went 'holy crap I forgot about this song!'

Title: Set The Bridge On Fire
Artist: White Heart
Album: Freedom
Year: 1989
Label: Sparrow
iTunes here; YouTube here.

This is a freaking good song. Guitar, bass, keys, drums... everyone is in top form here. The interlude is one of the best I've ever heard. It's not just a standard 'insert guitar solo here' deal, every instrument gets to play. The synth, real soft and gentle (yet it manages to be stately) and then the guitar rips through and the bass and a different guitar comes in and then...

There's even a great little acoustic guitar riff at the end of each verse. The rest of the song is hardcore rock, but somehow they make that little acoustic bit work.

Even the rhythm is great -- driving, and not quite centered.

Fans often cite this as one of Rick's best vocal performances to date (along with Desert Rose, How Many Times, Dr Jekyll And Mr Christian, Sing Your Freedom, Unchain, et cetera et cetera...), and the title is well deserved. He simply soars here. It sounds so effortless.

Lyrically, the song makes some good points. It doesn't beat the visual to death, but it explores it just enough to make you really think about it. Do you really want to live forever in that headspace of regretting the things you've done, the times you've messed up?


Great message. Phenomenal performance. If you only own one White Heart song, this should be a contender.

01 March 2013

Music Day

Well, since I was talking about Daniel Amos earlier this week, why not talk about them some more? (However, if the iTunes Store would acquire some Prodigal, I would have featured that instead because I just bought their Just Like Real Life album and HOLY CRAP it's freaking amazing. If you ever see it anywhere, buy it quick. You won't regret it.)

This was the first Daniel Amos song I remember hearing. I use the word 'remember' because my dad owns their self-titled debut on CD and I know I must have heard it a few times when I was younger, but I don't remember any of the material on it, only the cover art. I do seem to recall that it was country. But aside from that, I'd never heard Daniel Amos until this past week. (EDIT: Hold on, I just remembered that's not true... I have heard Shotgun Angel on classicchristian247.com a couple times. However, it's country so I repressed the memory.)

Anyway, I was reading the write-up on the Doppelganger album on the 500 Best Christian Albums blog and was intrigued. Haunting? Creepy? Eerie?

This might be worth looking into.

(You might as well know that I'm the kind of person who will willingly stay up till 4.30 in the morning reading books covering things like human sacrifice, demon possession, mental disorders, and biological warfare on a worldwide scale; then go to bed and sleep deep, long and peacefully. The author's name is Ted Dekker (and he draws a lot of Biblical parallels) if you enjoy that sort of thing.)

So I looked up the album on iTunes and, picking the song that sounded most interesting from the blog post, found myself previewing the following:

Title: Hollow Man
Artist: Daniel Amos
Album: Doppelganger
Year: 1983
Label: Alarma Records & Tapes
iTunes here; YouTube here.

Haunting? Definitely. Creepy? Well, what the song may have lacked, the cover art more than makes up for it. (Something about that wide plastic smile with the hollow pleasant 9-to-5-job eyes and the arm frozen in mid-movement still freaks me out.) Eerie? Spine-chillingly, wonderfully so.

Apparently the musical accompaniment is actually a song (Ghost Of The Heart) from the band's previous record played backwards. I bought that song too, for comparison, and it sounds about right. As odd as the backward drum sounds, it's the backwards bass line that's the most creepy. It growls, but it's an otherworldly growling, and it seems to have a slightly metallic quality to the sound. Of course it's one of my favourite parts of the song.

And the vocals on this song are amazing. They too are beautifully otherworldly as they loop around themselves, swirling, mingling with the indecipherable backward vocals of the other song, a chilling juxtaposition of flowing vocals against the slightly jarring staccato nest of the backward song. The first few times I listened to it (before I cheated and looked up the lyrics), I really kind of enjoyed listening and not quite being able to tell exactly which lyrics were forward and which were backward. The layers and repeats swirling around, plus the reversed vocals (and the fact that the song's actual lyrics tend to match the cadence and pitch of the backward vocals) makes the actual forward-playing English vocals hard to pick out and for some reason I really liked that (though it's worth noting that had this been a secular band, I probably would have had some serious reservations about it prior to Googling the lyrics to check exactly what I was listening to).

What I wouldn't give to see more of this creativity... anywhere. I only wish I had even the tiniest spark of musical understanding that I could attempt to nurture into something remotely close. Alas, all I can do is rely on the distant hope that there is a creative/musical genius out there who will get studio time and exposure without being forced by the CCM machine to kill all his God-given creativity and destroy the remains. (Either that or that the already-existing geniuses will stop believing the lie that they're too old and irrelevant to keep creating great art. As long as there's breath in your lungs, you're not too old to create. Just saying.)

In light of that last paragraph, it's worth noting that this band (unlike certain others *cough* White Heart) is in the process of recording another album -- you can find information on that here.

23 February 2013

Music Day

I'll just get this out of the way right now... this falls in the 'awesomely eighties' category. You have been warned.

It's not the stereotypical '80s (or at least not what I think of as stereotypical, which is a big brassy sound laden with sax solos *cough* Kim Boyce *cough*). But the bass groove is definitely '80s awesomeness. One and two and one and two and... (yes, I measure awesomeness in dance counts now. Call it an occupational hazard). Also, the drums have that mid-eighties 'big,' arena-filling sound.

And holy crap, I love how they did the chorus -- that steady, dragging, almost monotone against the the bass groove. It's the best in the second chorus because it leads right into the bridge -- a fiery, passionate, no-holds-barred cry against those who will not stand up and stop the madness, though they say they disagree with it.

Most of the time, the fadeout is my least favourite part of a song (exceptions being Sing Your Freedom and almost anything by David Meece). If not done well, it gets repetitive, plus it's a bugger to choreograph. Every one of my good choreographic pieces that 'runs off the rails,' so to speak, does so during the fadeout. It rarely adds anything to the song that the dance can build on, so my dancers on the staves just wind up randomly jumping around and essentially wasting music until the music gets soft enough that I can run them off the stage (which in itself is a pain in the neck to choreograph).

However, the fadeout on this one is fantastic (from a music fan's perspective -- this is subject to change should I ever choreograph this). The chorus, in its eerie monotone, keeps repeating over the bass and the drums (have I mentioned I love the bass line and the drums in this song?), meanwhile the lead singer keeps crying out for mercy over it. The sharp passion in his voice is such a beautiful opposite to the steady chorus.

Title: The Promise
Artist: The Front
Album: The Front
Year: 1985
Label: Mep/royal Music
iTunes here; YouTube here.

18 May 2012

That Moment (Music Day)

So I finally bought Classic Petra's album Back To The Rock the other day.

Basically it's Petra (the Greg X Volz mid-80s Petra), but they redid a bunch of their Greg-era hits -- 'modernized' them a little. Since the original Petra was technically disbanded a few years ago, they now call themselves 'Classic Petra.'

On the Petra Zone forum I'd read quite a few 'meh... I didn't like it' reviews, so I was a bit unsure of what to expect. In fact, I probably wouldn't have bought the album if I hadn't already heard the redone versions of Rose Coloured Stained Glass Windows and Adonai (two of my all-time Petra favourites) on classicchristian247.com and loved them both. (Seriously, you wouldn't think mixing strings and an electric guitar would sound like anything, but they do it on that first track and it sounds AMAZING.)

Anyway, so I bought the CD and the next Saturday afternoon my mother and I went birthday shopping for my sister so we listened to it.

It's good.

Usually I'm a total 'original-version-is-always-best' purist, but these are some good remakes.

The first couple of songs have some seriously kicking bass. Clean, formerly an eighties synth track, is now a thumping growling electric guitar extravaganza. Let's just say now I finally understand why people call songs 'crunchy.' This is it.

I don't know if the extra guitar brings it out, but in Bema Seat and More Power To Ya, you can really tell how much Greg's voice has matured. At one point I actually said "He sounds like Steve Green" (which only warps your mind until you remember that Steve Green was once the lead singer of White Heart).
(I just messed with everything you ever thought about Steve Green).
(You're welcome.)
It's not a bad thing though. At least he (Greg, that is) can still sing. Even twenty-five years after his last Petra concert he still hits all the notes.

Grave Robber took a little warming up to, but the use of strings really amps up the drama.

They also added two new tracks -- Back To The Rock and Too Big To Fail, the former written by Greg and the latter by Petra founder/guitarist and songwriter extraordinaire Bob Hartman.

Back To The Rock starts out a little slow and to me it seems almost off-rhythm, but it picks up well in the chorus. And oh man is it ever catchy. I was singing it for the rest of the day. Here again you can really tell how Greg's voice has mellowed.

Too Big To Fail -- Bob Hartman does it again! This is brimming with the 1980s/early 90s enthusiasm that all Petheads know and love. I love how the bridge loops back to the pre-chorus and the chorus again and then they rock out for a while and then they go back to the bridge and do it again. It's a fantastic, soaring song. This is one of those you turn up and sing along with no matter how bad your singing voice may be.

But what I really wanted to talk about was the remake of Angel Of Light.


It's another one of my favourite Petra songs. In fact, I featured it on Music Day a while back.

They put in some pretty sweet guitar for the remake, but there's this moment where (in both versions) all the instruments drop out and they all sing, a capella:
Angel of light
I see you glow in the night
But you only bring darkness to my soul...


On soul, in the original 1981 version, the guitar slides back in and draws in the other instruments for a full-on musical experience by the time they sing the next line.

In the new version, they layered all the members' voices and added an echo so the a capella already has more resonance. Then, starting on but, there's a couple slaps on the drums and on soul, the guitar comes screaming back in and BAM! a wall of sound hits you and almost knocks you off your feet.

When I first heard it, I was actually stunned breathless. It was so epic.

My only problem now is this: how to choreograph something even half as epic to go with that moment...

Title: Angel Of Light
Artist: Classic Petra (yes, iTunes lists them as just 'Petra,' but iTunes isn't exactly known for their accuracy)
Album: Back To The Rock
Year: 2010
Label: Classic Petra LLC (independent release)
iTunes here; YouTube here.

And, of course, I recommend buying the whole album... (also I recommend pumping up the bass and turning up the volume).