The Decemberists - O Valencia!

This instrumental element of this track centres around a guitar melody, supported by bass, drums and acoustic strumming for additional texture. In the pre-choruses there is a piano that adds an uplifting layer of momentum that leads perfectly into the chorus. The combination of wide, open piano and guitar notes layered on building drums pitted in call/response with the groove creates an effective "almost there" anticipation for the release of the chorus.

The chorus sees the addition of a percussive shaker and a shift in piano work to a quarter note drive. Another additional sound is an electric organ. To thicken the vocal on the hook "O Valencia" I can hear some double tracking. The guitar strumming is more active following a similar rhythm to the shaker. This is all wound up into a slowing down effect that brings us down into the next verse. The slowing down effect is most evident in the last chorus where the music must be brought to a close.

The vocal component to this track is quite simple and direct. There aren't too many effects that might confuse the vocal focus. On occasion there is a subtle backing vocal layer to emphasise the second half of a phrase. These occur more often after the first chorus. This would constitute as an effort to maintain some of the energy of the chorus into the next verse while bringing it down low enough to allow for an impact following it.  All in all though, the result is a fairly 'no-nonsense', in the room with band vibe.

Defeater - Waves Crash, Clouds Roll

This track has the aggressive vibe nailed from the beginning. The drum solo introduction rips, tears and shreds open the music. The sound of the tom tom drums throughout this track are quite low, thick and wet. This kind of sound results from loosely tuned drums, larger sizes (14-16"), double-ply drum heads and some EQ. A tom tom based groove comes in after 20 seconds making these thick sounding drums a point of focus.

This verse section driven by tom work is very strong contrast to the intensity in neighbouring sections of the song. The guitar switches to a 'almost clean' upper frequency melody which distances it sonically from the toms. The gap created by this change is the basis of the impact created at the change to the chorus. The vocals during this section are quite distantly spaced. The complex rhythmic intricacies of the drums get to shine during this section. A final note on the drums: Listening at 1:37, the accents pulled out of that snare roll are an extremely effective way of setting up the event that follows.

The guitar tone in this track sounds like many layers of distortion sandwiched together. This most evident to me in the introduction. The multiple guitar parts are quintessential in this style of music. The overlapping of guitar parts creates a thick sound as well as the opportunity for melodies to be easily put in and taken out of the mix.

The sudden ending of this song is quite fitting with its musical theme. Looking at the journey of the arrangement, it is fitting to end a song with as much certainty and definition as it begins with. This fits quite simply in the concept of cyclic, coherent arrangement.

Tame Impala - Apocalypse Dreams

For an album that came out this year, there's certainly a effort here to revive a vintage sound. I think it's quite refreshing in this way. There are also lot of lo-fi vintage synthesizer sounds featured which compliment to this effect. After a bit of reading, I can quite easily see it labelled as an " Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" that builds on the début of psychedelic stoner pop.

The syncopated piano part that introduces this track with the drums sounds quite distant. It could could be mic'd from a distance in a small hall to my ear. Most interestingly though is the reverse tail of it. The last two seconds of each note are being turned up. This might have been done with a high-gain compressor on a long attack. There are two sides to the piano in the stereo panorama (just like the two hands of the piano player). The higher notes take place in the right; low notes on the left. The higher notes sound to me as if they are recorded in closer proximity as there is significantly more definition and a sharper attack.

I particularly enjoy the lo-fi vibe at the break at 2:04. The synth reminds me strongly of an old 8-bit video game or an early sci-fi film. The notes that fall slightly off-tune and 'waver' are all part of the vibe that compliments the whole sound. It cuts into this section quite suddenly like an insert of a new piece of tape (I don't know too much about analogue technology). However, the lack of decay from the sounds preceding it makes for a slightly rougher 'cut & paste' feel that I think suits this track nicely. Another example of this quick change occurs at 2:58. This one is disguised more with a 'suck in' effect. The imagery this generates for me is a hand stopping a flow of water and releasing it as if with a tap.

Dibia$E - OMG!!!

Interesting but alien! 
I want to do this mainly because of unusual it is. I hadn't heard anything as alien as this before listening. There's a huge emphasis on very low and distorted (8-bit style) bass on wonky swung drums. As radical, bizarre and dissonant much of this track is I find myself really getting into its groove. I think the thing that attracts me to 'glitchy' tracks like this is the unpredictability of the effects that are used. The variation in the track comes from these glitches more than from changes in the notes/progression used. I can listen to this same bassline through the entire track and my interest is kept by the outrageous variation in processing.

Drums: 
The first unusual element is the kick and its 'wind' attached to each beat. It sounds to me like a fairly standard kick with a vocal grunt or breath tied into it. The snare is interesting also in that it sounds like a 'boxy' clap sound that's had its tail cut off. But then it's been saturated with a reverb which doesn't do much for making the space of clap sound natural. You can hear it cut off abruptly and followed up with the 'fake' space. The hats are pretty dark in their sound. You hear quite a bit of the stick contact and not a whole lot of sparkle. They blend in quite a bit except on beat 2+.

Some of the effects I can pick: 
I'm going to have a little guess at some of the crazy effect processing that comes in at times on this track.

• Delay on vocals where the delayed version is not much softer than the original. 
• A long time-stretch where the 'grains' in the bass are pulled apart from each other and pushed back. 
• Low Frequency Oscillator (LFO) on the bass making the bass duck in and out for a short time. 
• Arpeggiator effects for some of the best glitches in here I think, 

The National - Fake Empire

The track opens with some feedback like drones which are soon hidden behind the driving piano track. The track is 3:25 in length, 4/4 and 102bpm. It's arrangement seems more linear than cyclic to me this may be once again due to it being the first track on the album. It begins from silence and grows to an intensity which is carried on with the loud drums of the second track.

Piano is primary element of the music in this track. The piano sound contains little of the hammer sound and contains mostly the resonance from the body. It provides the bass section to the music all the way up to 1:15 where the bass guitar enters and fills the gap in the lower frequencies. The rhythm of the piano is denoted by a lot of swung rhythms and a simple alternation between left-hand lows and right-hand highs. I'm wearing headphones for this but I believe there is some panning to help create the left/right perception from the pianists point of view.

There vocals have a reverb applied to them that extends the higher register sounds into the distance. This is of course most audible at the end of each line but it is quite useful in filling that space. These vocals occupy a strong center position in the mix

One aspect that I really enjoy with the drums o this recording is the 'cross-resonance' or 'bleeding resonance' creating a sizzle of snare being triggered by the kick drum. I think that this kind idiosyncratic element adds a  realistic and 'alive' character to the drums.