No BS Reactions: Prog Dude reacts to Meshuggah - Dancers to a Discordant System!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ส.ค. 2024
- Another viewer suggestion as I continue my education about how Meshuggah originated djent and influenced a bunch of artists I already listen to!
Meshuggah - Dancers to a Discordant System: • Dancers To A Discordan...
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The gritty "whisper" is Thomas Haake on vocals. The barking monotone monster is Jens.
The trick with the Meshuggah rhythm is that pretty much all their songs are in ordinary 4/4. It's just that the guitars are not complying and play a riff that isn't 4/4 but sort of make it fit over multiple measures or ,every now and then, add some notes to it.
The drummer has this schizofrenic style that the bass drums tend to follow the guitar riff while his right hand play's the 4/4 on the hihat or cymbal. The snare tends to alternate between those two.
It sometimes helps if you listen to the vocals as if it is another rhythmic distorted guitar part. It is another instrument.
Not sure about a Steward Copeland connection but there is a straight line from lead gitarist Fredrik Thordendal to his hero Alan Holdsworth. His solo's are often quite jazzy.
As it turns out, I did a bit of research afterwards and discovered that, while the line might not be straight, Tomas does include Neil Peart among his influences (I mean...what drummer doesn't these days, really?), and Neil was influenced by Copeland, so... The DNA is there. I wouldn't have picked up on what you described him doing, but it does make sense now in retrospect to explain what I was hearing. Np wonder I was having trouble reconciling the time signature! LOL I also love that Tomas includes Ian Mosely of Marillion as an influence, both for the fact that it just underlines their Prog roots, but also because Ian and Pete Trewavas of Marillion don't seem to get the credit they deserve as a rhythm section!
There's a guy on YT who explains Meshuggah in a fun way that is also easy to understand. Yogev Gabay. Here's a video where he explains quite an interesting song where they try to fit a 17 beat riff in a 4/4 song.
th-cam.com/video/PSccUMhoa_U/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=YogevGabay
The way Haake plays the guitar riff with the kick drum and plays the song in 4/4 with the cymbals and snare is beyond insane 🤘
@@NothingNowhere69420 That's way beyond my skill level, even at my best! LOL
Fredrik's father was a jazz lover which influenced his solos.
I suggest Straws Pulled at Random from their remastered Nothing album. It's a beautifully crafted masterpiece.
Personally I think the nothing rerelease sounds pretty bad compared to the original
@@harriblake9088 Every single time someone says something positive about blue nothing someone else has to say yellow nothing is better. And I wouldn't have it any other way!
Tomas does the quiet vocals.
Once you realise the vocals are percussive instruments you get a better feeling for what they do.
Also. 4/4. Just find that tempo (is usually on the hihat/cymbals) and let your mind go. It's all 4/4.
They all play with polyrhythm. Just get that metronome in your head going and it all begins clear!
the main similarity between copeland and haake is that they are both fantastic players. copeland's style (with the police at least) is to keep his use of the kick drum to a minimum, leaving huge space in the music for the bass guitar to play in. here we have a drummer who wants to fill in the space with kicks to unify with the riffs, but who instead omits snare, using cymbals to count. this makes it easier for the listener to lock in and move to the song, while the guitars seemingly play a chaos underneath. musicians are drawn to it because they can't figure it out. it is genius music that stands out from the rest.
Interesting. I hadn't made that connection before, being mostly cognizant of the hit hat. You might just have changed my approach to listening to The Police the next time I hear them!
Excellent analysis! Love that you also take your time to analyze the lyrics. They are really great songwriters aswell as lyrics writers. It is dark poetry with alot of metaphors. The more you analyze it the more rewarding it is
I would recommend you have a stab at New Millenium Cyandie Christ next. An older song from -98
Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated! I will add that to my list, though I'll note that I was hoping to move forward chronologically through their catalog to be able to see their evolution. Thanks for the suggestion, though. Might take a while, but I will certainly try to get to it!
@@BleedingEdgeProg
Both Bleed and Dancers to a Discordant System is from Obzen (2008)
New Millenium Cyanide Christ is from Caosphere (1998).
The album Nothing (2002) is where they started to form their current sound (they switched to 8 strings guitar here)
So I think it might be worth your time to listen some Chaossphere or Destroy Erase Improve (1995)
@@BleedingEdgeProg For context, the album this and bleed were on (Obzen) is kind of the beginning of the later half of their career so far. Really each album besides the first couple, are an entirely different soundscape from start to finish even if some of the ideas are the same. In terms of newer material, I think you'd most appreciate some of the stuff off their 2016 release The Violent Sleep of Reason, particularly songs like Clockworks, Monstrocity, Nostrum or Stifled.
Definitely dont sleep on their earlier work though, Catch-33 (2005) is their most experimental full album to date and is effectively one 45 minute song broken into 3 parts to form the overall concept and has some of the most disgustingly creative songwriting I've ever heard, and just before that in 2004 they put out a 20 minute song called "I" that apart from being brutal and insane, is one of the most compositionally complex songs I've ever seen if you actually look at how they wrote it on paper (check out Yogev Gabay's channel if that's of any interest, he does the best job at breaking down their songs individually because each one is almost like its own puzzle).
fun fact, Tool and Meshuggah did tour together in the early 2000s. Likely had some kind of passive influence on each band's trajectory and evolution of their sound.
Yep! Heard about that after I made the video, and it certainly seems that I'm really starting to get a clearer picture of their influences, which is cool. I love to see the connective tissue between artists.
Went to this tour in Philly. Amazing show
You should check meshuggah - I . Its so unique
3:35 angular
Thank you! I'll upload that to my internal thesaurus later.
There is an instrumental version of their album "NOTHING" on YT and it's one of my favorite things ever. I already loved that album but I prefer the instrumental, it's a whole different trip and blew my mind all over again discovering it. The vocals and (seemingly) random placement of syllables gets monotonous and grating for me at times, even though I love the band and a ton of their stuff. Anyway I can't recommend enough checking that out in your own time some day, same goes for anyone reading who is or isn't familliar with that album or a big Meshuggah fan!
Thanks for the tip! I will seek it out!
@@BleedingEdgeProg Well FYI I was just searching for it myself and it seems it's been removed :(
@@PanasonicTooth That might have been my own dumb fault. I had decided to shift the name, since I'm doing more than interviews, but didn't foresee that little problem. My bad. 😬
I don't think that they mean necessary control but how broad is thinking of common man. Not conspiracy like structure. How rational is self-interest maximizer with lack of comprehention.
Interesting thought! You may be right about that.