The "Help Me Figure This Out" Thread

i'm one of those music listeners that is always trying to figure out how a song is doing what it's doing. so i thought ilxor would be a great place to have a thread filled with questions that don't really deserve their own thread – what model synth is that? what song is this song clearly ripping off? etc. for me, because of a project i'm working on right now, mine are mostly going to be to the tune of, "what influences/contexts are informing [x piece of asian pop music]," but really, let's make it as broad as possible! even when you don't have questions to ask, i imagine this thread could become a good place to hear interesting stuff and ponder interesting questions.

to wit, i'll get started...i listen to pretty much everything the korean pop industry releases nowadays (long story), and every once in a while a REAL curveball comes out of nowhere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKe-t6Ng03A

buried at the end of a mostly unremarkable comeback album from a pop singer from the '80s is this bizarre instrumental. but...what the fuck is this?? the beat that comes in sounds like it could be death gripz for a second, but then you get these kind of rhodesy, metro area (??) chords. then these big, dreamy, postrock-ish (??) guitar arpeggios. but all the weird details from there, the strange synth bass, the synth interjections lines, the textural squelches and scratches, the string breakdown, the bizarre and brief vocal arrangement (...stereolab?? no...), the accordion at the end...i have no idea what the fuck's going on! a lot of it feels very familiar on the individual track level, but as a holistic piece of music i'm just totally lost. any observations would be awesome!

This is nice, reminds me a little of Scott Herren (Prefuse 73) under the Savath and Savalas moniker

i will check that right on out!

also, if anyone's sheepish: no need to acknowledge anything that came before you in this thread to post in this thread. post anytime you find yourself wondering about what makes a track tick.

What time period is this from? I can hear a cheeky sample of an apple mac/Iphone stock sound effect at 2'28" so it's fairly recent I guess.

I know very little about Korean music but I wonder if there's an influence from some Japanese artists that are adept at combining more disparate genre details with changes in style, it's something that happened from the Shibuya Kei era onwards in Pop Music, this track is more subtle obv, but it could almost be from a later Akiko Yano record, or maybe Yuki or Shiina Ringo, something like that.

the first savath and savalas album is beautiful.

@MaresNest oh heck yeah, japan's been excellent at that since way before shibuya-kei even -- i'd say it started w/ YMO at the latest. historically it's what the japanese are best at, and better than anyone else, though i think at the individual song level k-pop's aberrations maybe reach an even greater sophistication.

i don't hear much shiina here, except maybe the vocal bit something she'd do...come to think of it there's some mid-late cornelius stuff that could be a bit similar to this song. still feel a way's off though.

time period: came out this past week. is the stock sound you hear at 2:28 the accordion?

oh and yes, you are correct in inferring that korea learned a lot from japan. basically when korea finally removed the shackles of military dictatorship in 1987 they were in the dark ages of modern pop music while japan was still enjoying maybe the most brilliant era of pop production that's transpired anywhere (much as i love k-pop for the past 6 years, i don't think a pop music industry has ever done better than japan in the '80s). so i think a lot of cues were taken, even if very few korean artists wound up sounding all too much like their japanese counterparts.

that first savath & salavas album is a really interesting connection. can totally hear it in the damaged beat, the fleeting use of traditional production guitar in an otherwise electronic composition, etc. really excellent call! it's a really beautiful record, too – though the rest of their/his discography is super different/weird...

any other insights (or complete non-sequitur questions) very much welcome!

bringing this thread back with an ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT question (and please! if you have any questions of this nature at all, please do use this thread; you don't have to answer anyone to ask anything)

i'm listening to Afrika Islam radio shows from 1983, and found this INCREDIBLE song (blend?) that is driving me nuts. what is this!?

https://soundcloud.com/the-k-pendium/what-is-this

maybe it's super obvious and i'm embarrassing myself...at least, i hope. need!!

just had no idea that kind of electro/dubstep/nightcore/pc music pitched up vocal thing was happening in the early '80s. sounds so modern.

That's "Jam On Revenge (The Wikki Wikki Song)" by Newcleus, a classic electro tune from 1983. Their follow-up, "Jam On It", is also great.

"Jam On Revenge" - http://youtu.be/DmwEG-vtZB0
"Jam On It" - http://youtu.be/zEmg5GaAHbk

brilliant! thank you. turns out Islam was playing the instrumental version, which i prefer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOuKE4feM0M

now that i think about it, prince was of course doing the same thing not long after. so not that surprising, i guess. great nevertheless...

since the last one was a success...

https://soundcloud.com/the-k-pendium/oczcqeqkufm2

this is also not a sound, at first brush, i'd expect from c. '83. this particular sound of what might later be called gangsta rap is much more wu-tang/'90s than much else i know from the '80s...anyone know who it is?

I don't recognize it, but if that really is from 1983, I don't think it's a rap song. AFAIK no one was doing rap that sounded like that back then. Most likely it's break isolated from some funk tune.

1984 at the latest, the tapes aren't dated, but absolutely from Afrika Islam's old radio show. and yeah, no one raps over it throughout, so probably a break...but wtf!!

aghhhh i've heard experimental stuff 100% like this before

https://soundcloud.com/the-k-pendium/2099-1/s-IRrcV?in=the-k-pendium/sets/my-dogs/s-nW9sm

but i can't place it. '60s/'70s out jazz stuff (sun ra, black artists grouo) is close but not quite otm...experimental electronic? have leafed through some artists where i'd expect to maybe find some similar textures, like oval, but so far nothing. just frustrating as i know for certain there is at least one track in my itunes practically identical to this one.

Kind of reminds me of Tod Dockstader's "Water Music" stuff.