“Digital Haircut” - DD/MM/YYYY, “Black Square” (2009)
I’ve been meaning to post this for months, but I keep putting it off because I like it so much that I am afraid of not being able to do it justice. But that’s a silly reason not to post something.
I first heard this song when I was listening through all the mp3s posted by SXSW, of which it was one. “D” was an incredibly good letter, and I didn’t end up posting this one on The Romp at the time. But in the intervening time, I’ve found this to have the most staying power of any of the songs I downloaded at that time—that is, it’s the one that I choose to listen to most frequently and consistently. I am especially impressed with this fact because it’s “experimental” music. I don’t just appreciate it for the interesting ideas behind it; I actually love listening to it.
The main five-note figure drives the piece along in this interestingly periodic-sounding fashion. I am not sure what time signature to say this song is in (and I think it changes at times), but I’m tempted to say 1/4: the even-emphasis percussion and the five-beat guitar figure keep it sounding like each beat is pretty much equally important to the others. In general, I think what makes the song sound so fresh to me is the sense of changing or rich periodicity—another example is the vocals, which come in short bursts on a couple of tracks that phase in and out of sync with each other.
Although it lacks many of the other trappings of minimalism, I would say this focus on periodicity links it to minimalist music. But again, I pretty much just think it’s a beautiful song to listen to.
