disc two track four - 3:09
David Lindsay - Catacean Progress
ANALYSES: words visual similarity of "digital fish" spectrogram analysis
words
This piece truly sounds like it takes place underwater. The piece begins with high strong tones, waving around and dissipating little digital sounds, in the same infinite space. Coming back with other harmonic tones, they scatter the digital sounds, like thousands of tiny fish, scattered by a whale's emergence. One sees the sunlight sifting through the water, creating harmonious glares of thin light. And the listener scuba dives. Through darkness, blue, and solitude. With every sound reverberating, off and through, hollow waters. At times distortion caresses, or subtlety seduces.
All times harmonious, sympathetic, and lucid.
visual similarity of "digital fish"
spectrogram analysis *
* the left channel is on top, the right on bottom, yellow is loud, purple is silent, the higher up the pigments the higher the frequency
As you can see, this piece is based on conglomerations of events. They look similar because they are, quite. There are basically two components, and they are directly related. The first is a melodic line which is reiteration, modified, emphasized, and accentuated towards different angles, such as distortion or ambience, through out the piece. These are the fiery masses. The first comes in tightly and plays its little tune and dies out. It then returns with more tones, and returns along a different line in the third and fourth event. Although the third, between :40 and 1:04 sort of looks like two events, they are tied together, and the fourth event, between 1:08 and 1:20, is a different expression of the same line in the third event, which is slightly different than the first and second phrases. This piece is musical, it is best to see it this way. The second component of the piece are what I have called "digital fish". They are the tails of the fiery masses, and rarely emerge on their own. One can see that they are much more prominent in the second event, as the bubbly suspended bits. In the fourth event as well they are quite expressive. At the end of the fourth event, around 1:22, one can see the yellow and denser light blues cut off, where by the digital fish finish the event and lead into the centre space of the piece, which consists of one low note being plucked, or played four times with delay increasing. Over these tones are the squigglies, and together they make the transparent stipulation slight towers between 1:25 and 1:45. The second half of the piece begins with the event at 1:45. It begins with heavy low distortion, notice the yellow left base, but that fades quickly into the main cry of the event; a high sustained feedback type sound, which raises slightly and dies out, but just barely. As well, the digital fish, squigglies, accompany it. It fades back and drops a note, waves in and out, getting louder and more squiggly. These are the two narrow towers at 2:07 to 2:18. One can see the lines in these masses because there is not an overpowering distortion, and mainly the components of the chord is visible. The final event takes place around 2:20, with a high ring that eclipses the beginning. There are many digital fish and heavy lower tones sustaining, that almost sound like an electric cello, which then gets heavily distorted, but in a calming pristine sense, as a mass amount of the digital squigglies. This event is the most expressive and contains most components of the piece within it. It is a musical expression, and final answer to the first call in the first event. The gesture resembles pushing sand. There is no great resolution, but this furthers the idea that this is a space, and these elements are still there now, moving around. This piece just films them for a couple of minutes. And it's very beautiful and powerful.
analysis by Sophia Male
Social top