Repetition Repetition Repetition

[alan nagsworth]

Oneida - Sheets Of Easter

Can YOU withstand the 14-minute challenge?! Yeah that's a pretty pretentious thing to say, actually, but please give it a listen.

To me, this song is audio heaven. That kind of repetition, where the drum fills and the oscillations of the keyboard and all that NOISE just slowly creep in and out among the constant pounding in the foreground, just absolutely slays me. The vocals are initially so fierce and imposing but almost subconsciously over the course of about six minutes they fade out until you suddenly find yourself asking where the hell you are and what the fuck you're doing listening to this ridiculous song.

There are three momentary bridges in which the riff deviates from its seemingly endless two-chord dirge, each one lasting four beats/one bar (in the case of this BPM that's about 1.5 seconds) and consisting of a magcial third chord. blurm blurm blurm blurm and then BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM for another god knows how long.

It's weird because I'm normally only a fan of repetitious music that is at least a bit more cohesive and varied than the above track, (there is a lot of 'change' in Sheets Of Easter but it takes effort and headphones to sit there and pick it out if you're not a fan of it) and certainly not so relentlessly aggressive, but this song makes my heart soar. It's like a constantly-pumping fist endlessly elevating me to higher climes. The way each of the three main 'verses' batters on until you can barely stand the erosion of your attention span any more, and then you're greeted by one of the three brief bridges and when the next verse kicks in it feels like being born again. The song regains all its purpose, it resumes pace unflinchingly and it's the sheer audacity of the track as a whole that truly makes me appreciate it. Also, I will admit unashamedly that no band has ever created jams like this and intrigued and enthralled me like Oneida has. Most underrated band in the fucking world. Apparently they open the majority of their live sets with this song.

The most fascinating thing of all, and a fact discussed with a close friend and my girlfriend after I played it to them, is that even though they both hated it initially, it soon slid to the backburner and soundtracked about ten minutes of solid conversation (about repetition). I then went on to notice that their feet were tapping alongside mine the whole time, and they both agreed with me on one thing: when the song ends, there is a void of empty space in your immediate surroundings and you find yourself briefly wondering how you will live without it. The song used to really piss me off, but these days I find myself listening to it twice in a row just to be satisfied. It's so outrageously demanding at first, but eventually the square peg is driven so forcibly that the round hole slowly develops four clear, quadrilateral sides.

I FUCKING LOVE THAT SONG.

Do you like amusingly obnoxious and yet infectiously repetitious music? Oneida are pretty much a joke (albeit an extremely talented, frenetically-paced and superbly hard-working joke) and I don't doubt that Sunn 0))) are totally aware of how fucking silly they really are under that fantastical awe-inspiring facade. And come on, just look at 'Metal Machine Music'. Bare jokes.

Freakin' tell me about repetitious music, guy!

[chocky909]

This was my first experience of extremely repetitive music. It's Burger Ink's Do The Strand from a Matador Sampler. No idea what the rest of Burger Ink output is like but I always liked this.

http://grooveshark.com/s/Do+The+Strand/3CC34V?src=5

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm really enjoying it so far (I'm a fan of Oneida from at least one of their albums, not heard much else) and I love stuff like this in general.

I only ever tried to listen to the bonus track on "Hit To Death In The Future Head" by the Flaming Lips once (which appears to be one note, bouncing back and forth between speakers for 20-odd minutes). Er...more later.

[alan nagsworth]

Let me know if you get the same crushing emptiness at the end of it, Mort. I'm interested to see what other people think of it.

You may be interested to know their new album leaked this morning. It's the final chapter in a trilogy of releases, and to be honest half of it (two of the four tracks) are so intentionally stupid. Death personified. But I'm always happy to meet fans of their music, as they are very few and far between (they are basically the flagship of Jagjaguwar, FFS, what is everyone's problem?!) and they are (second to Ween of course) the greatest band I've ever heard. The three-disc 'Rated O' they released in 2009, written and recorded in a year, whilst two thirds of the band maintain busy lives as full-time English teachers, is outstanding. They must just work like crazy and sweat ideas out over the summer and weekends. How they do it is beyond me; they've released an album practically every other year for 20 years.

[Famous Mortimer]

Ah, my connection played up with about 20 seconds to go so I didn't get the full ending experience. I lost all my music when I switched computers about 6 months ago, and have been slowly replacing it all, and Oneida's one of the bands I didn't get round to.

Saying that, on that link provided above, one of the recommended tracks was Cornelius's "Count Five or Six", another wonderfully one-idea song.

[Marty McFly]

Nagsy, I love ya, but I couldn't stand more than 50 seconds of that. I don't mind me an epic song but it should at least be interestingly epic. That track sounded like nails pounding into my eardrums.

If you like long songs with lots of brilliantly meandering yet repetitious guitars, get yourself into Mr Mark Kozelek, sir.

Red House Painters - Katy Song

Red House Painters - Mother

[Serge]

The first thing that came to mind was Ricardo Villalobos' 'Fizheuer Zieheuer', a 37 minute track based on samples from a song by Blehorkestar Bakija Bakic called 'Pobjednicki Cocek'. The original song is about 3-4 minutes long, but by taking elements of it and looping them, it becomes this repetitive beast that never gets boring. Although there are slight changes over the course of the track, they are so subtle that you barely notice them, except for the occasional overlaying of 'Pobjednicki Cocek's opening horn flourish at random points.

[noembed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8_BAoVwoaM[/noembed]

While writing that, I also thought of Brian Eno's 'Discreet Music', though that's a slight cheat - it is based on two keyboard lines simply repeated over and over, but they slide out of sync so it never quite sounds repetitive. Bizarrely, one section of the track appears as a track on Fripp & Eno's 'Evening Star' album and manages to sound completely different.

I only ever tried to listen to the bonus track on "Hit To Death In The Future Head" by the Flaming Lips once (which appears to be one note, bouncing back and forth between speakers for 20-odd minutes).

I listened to that track precisely once as well! I think it's titled 'The Headache' and part of it appears at the end of the track 'The Magician Vs. The Headache' as well, if I remember rightly. I'm also pretty sure that they sampled it again on one of the tracks on 'Embryonic'.

[Gradual Decline]

It's got to be "Sweetest Part of the Leaf" by Chuck Jones.

"74 minute recording, as performed by a 13 piece "rock" band, of the main riff from "Sweetleaf" by Black Sabbath."

MP3, 67.7 MB - http://www.babygorilla.com/warehouse/art/isolation/sweetestpartoftheleaf.mp3

[alan nagsworth]

Ah, my connection played up with about 20 seconds to go so I didn't get the full ending experience.

Genuine LOL. You missed the last bridge right at the end! It's all worth it for that!

Nagsy, I love ya, but I couldn't stand more than 50 seconds of that. I don't mind me an epic song but it should at least be interestingly epic. That track sounded like nails pounding into my eardrums.

You've got to look into the light
light
light
light
light
light
light
light
light
light

The lyrics do change though! I emailed the singer a couple of years ago regarding their lyrics as they are not published anywhere (he told me they never keep carbon copies of their songs after they're recorded and the graciously offered to listen to a selection of my favourite songs and transcribe them by hand, which he did promptly within a month - what a fucking hero) and he told me that in each verse, a different word is chanted. It goes 'light', 'night', 'sight' and then in the final four bars after the last bridge it's 'RIGHT'. Is that not interesting enough for ya?!

[rudi]

Ooh I'm a huge fan of repetitious music. Nice thread idea Capt Nags.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3ii_sD6t9Y&feature=related#

[Utter Shit]

What a load of tedious and unarguably pretentious shit.

[djtrees]

I saw a band that played the same riff for an hour the other week. There was much cheering and high fiving when it had finished, less people walked out than I would have expected.

[rudi]

What a load of tedious and unarguably pretentious shit.

Tedious I can imagine, but "unarguably pretentious"? Not only is it arguably, but ANY music is pretentious.

Oh I forget: you don't like it, therefore it's shit.

[Utter Shit]

Come off it. It has nothing to do with me not liking it. I don't like Justin Bieber but I can still recognise it as music. Also, how can you argue that it is arguable whether it is pretentious, then say that all music is pretentious? Unless you're agreeing with me that it's just not music.

I just cannot see any redeeming features in that whatsoever. If you like it more power to you, but fourteen minutes of the same two (one?) second sound, I don't see it I'm afraid.

Is the feeling of emptiness after it finishes not just your brain getting used to that sound being the norm, seeing as it's a constant drone for fourteen minutes? A bit of a false way of eliciting an emotion I would argue, but then again if that was the plan then I suppose they can say they've succeeded.

[Funcrusher]

Come off it. It has nothing to do with me not liking it. I don't like Justin Bieber but I can still recognise it as music. Also, how can you argue that it is arguable whether it is pretentious, then say that all music is pretentious?

Who do you think you are, [banned troll]? How is it pretentious? What is it pretending to be? It's not even that repetitive- there seem to be some elements changing throughout. There's plenty of hip-hop which is literally just the same recorded section repeated.It's just a repeated riff, like a lot of rock music, taken to an extreme. Not really my bag, but it's nothing that unusual.

[rudi]

Come off it. It has nothing to do with me not liking it. I don't like Justin Bieber but I can still recognise it as music.

Oh, so you're saying it's not music at all, rather than shit music? That's the end of that then. T'ra!

[alan nagsworth]

it's just not music.

A lot less than the components of 'Sheets Of Easter' would constitute as music. Are you living in a box?

fourteen minutes of the same two (one?) second sound

There are plenty of movements, nuances and shifts in the song, as mentioned in the OP, that make it an extremely far cry from the same two-second sound on repeat. If they recorded one bar and put it on a loop for fourteen minutes, it would be shit and I wouldn't listen to it. There's a very big difference.

Is the feeling of emptiness after it finishes not just your brain getting used to that sound being the norm...?

Aye, just like all great music.

A bit of a false way of eliciting an emotion I would argue, but then again if that was the plan then I suppose they can say they've succeeded.

Aye, just like all great music.

As for that 'false' remark, I don't really get what's false or pretentious about a band jamming it hard with great energy, creating music that people quite obviously enjoy.

[Squink]

That new Oneida album isn't bad, I thought. It definitely takes a bit of getting used to, but it works quite well as an exit door out of the Thank Your Parents trilogy.

Anyway, here's Stereolab's "Metronomic Underground", which seems to fit the remit of this thread. Definitely a huge steal from Can's bass line to "Yoo Do Right" of course. I'm sure Tim Gane had been itching to use that for years, and when he finally got around to it he really did it justice. I can't find the original online, so this will have to do. I think it's a John Peel Session version...

Metratomic Underground

[HappyTree]

Nyan Cat - SUPER OMEGA ALPHA Extended Version

10 hours and 6 minutes of repetition, if you please.

Or you can go to infinity here:

http://nyan.cat/

[Johnny Yesno]

That Oneida track put me in mind of Super Going by Boredoms:

Boredoms - Super Going

[Famous Mortimer]

"The Sweetest Part Of The Leaf" reminded me of Banksy's contribution to this genre, "That's Hot". It's not good, as such, but it is fascinating in a way. I remember listening to it without knowing, originally, how long it was, going "this has got to end soon, right?" It's ballsy and horrifying and ultimately moves past annoying to somewhere else:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/09/banksy_paris_hi.html

I think it's quite difficult for me to say why I like this stuff, and easy for other people to use some variation on the term "pretentious shit" when criticising. Ah well.

I'll throw out "Ecstasy in Slow Motion" by Spacemen 3 as well. The version on the "Dreamweapon" CD is upwards of ten minutes, and it appears to be one note, just stretched and shifted and messed with. Bloody lovely though.

Spacemen 3 - Ecstacy in Slow Motion.mov

[The Boston Crab]

FUCK. YES.

When the first 'bridge' kicked back into the main 'riff', I involuntarily shouted 'YEEEESSS' and I got goosebumps all up my legs and tits, if I'm honest.

I used to listen to an awful lot of French house, basically 8 minute tracks made up of 2-bar loops. It's all in the changes and getting every last drop from your basic components. The shifts are often so subtle you really do have to be totally engaged in it to appreciate what's happening, otherwise it's just an annoying sound.

I feel the enjoyment of music may well be partly about the element of surprise and expectation. Once you anticipate the places it goes, you've begun to get inside the piece and can enjoy the ride. Yet, within that, the 'surprises', even on a very small scale are what puts that central expectation into context. You can enjoy the differences because you're locked into the comfort of a familiar pattern.

[boki]

I made it through all 21-and-three-quarter minutes of Brutal Truth's 'Prey' once, but that's probably 'cos it was on in the background while I was mucking about online.  It's a short sample from one of their other songs looped and gradually distorted (as if it wasn't noisy enough already) - it's a pretty good exercise in seeing things through if nothing else.
BRUTAL TRUTH - Prey (FULL TRACK)
Enjoy!

Oh yeah, while I'm here, I've only managed about 5 minutes myself so far, but some guys in Sweden once watched this on a loop for five hours:
Monsquaz

[The Boston Crab]

French House Endgame

DJ Falcon - So much love to give (Original Version)

The fact that it's monstrously cheesy as well and yet somehow manages to transcend that fact over the course of its eleven minutes, to the point where the actual sample means nothing any more, it's just all about the shifts, the moments. It's like being mouth fucked by a really boisterous happy dog, for an hour.

[alan nagsworth]

Huzzah! Fresh meat. You're making me want to put the record on again, man. The first disc of 'Each One Teach One' consists of two tracks of similar length. The second, 'Antibiotics' is a great deal more varied than 'Sheets Of Easter' but it still plays on Oneida's wonderful sense of repetition (there's that word again!) and ultimately sits in two clear, solid movements. If you dig 'Sheets' it's quite easy to understand just why I love Oneida so much (where is Neil?! Aside from my old housemate, he is the only Oneida fan I've ever met who was even slightly as avid as myself). 90% of their output is nowhere near as long-winded, that's for sure, and they're as much a psych/noise garage rock band (with occasional nods to folk and a big influence from Simon & Garfunkel) as they are repetitive droning madmen. 'Sheets Of Easter' is the most extreme end of their spectrum but it's also a height they have not achieved, or even bothered to attempt to achieve, since.

You can listen to 'Antibiotics' here and I would recommend that you do because it is FUCKING DOPE.

It's all in the changes and getting every last drop from your basic components. The shifts are often so subtle you really do have to be totally engaged in it to appreciate what's happening, otherwise it's just an annoying sound.

Very true. I can't help the fact that as soon as this song comes on I want to shut my eyes and return to the basic visual interpretation of the song that I have; The subtle changes poking their noses like prairie dogs out of a big earthen landscape where lightning strikes almost exactly the same place, the highest branch atop the tallest tree, over and over again, and a harsh storm of noise sweeps the dust up so thick that you can barely see any sign of activity. My mind locks into that landscape and I'm transfixed. It's like the hardest magic eye puzzle you ever tried to do, about a mile across and virtually impossible to see the whole thing in its entirety, instead choosing to dedicate your attention to smaller sections, gradually moving from left to right, and occasionally gaining the wonderful clarity of focus and actually seeing shit. It's a huge, pinpointedly-accurate industrial body hammer, and in between the foreground of charging pistons and steam clouds, you can get a faint glimpse of some of the machine's deeply intricate inner workings. It's fucking beautiful.

The notion that this is pretentious shit, I find, is as absurd as the common reaction to abstract, slightly indistinguishable music as "just noise". It's all just fucking noise, you clowns.

I feel the enjoyment of music may well be partly about the element of surprise and expectation. Once you anticipate the places it goes, you've begun to get inside the piece and can enjoy the ride. Yet, within that, the 'surprises', even on a very small scale are what puts that central expectation into context. You can enjoy the differences because you're locked into the comfort of a familiar pattern.

Again, dead right. One of the reasons I love 'Sheets' so much is because, despite being able to easily pick out the subtleties and the changes, the insistent repetition of it still now leads me to forget exactly where they appear and where they disspiate. Each listen becomes 0.0001% less surprising with the wonder of human memory, but nevertheless it's a song that stays 99.9999% fresh on every listen.

That new Oneida album isn't bad, I thought. It definitely takes a bit of getting used to, but it works quite well as an exit door out of the Thank Your Parents trilogy.

'Horizon' is utterly phenomenal, don't you think? 'Gray Area' was a massive turn-off for me but it's not unlike the rest of the album in that respect: disconcerting, challenging, almost mocking every step of the way. It is a fitting end, too, I wholeheartedly agree.

Thanks to everyone for their contributions. Keep them coming, this is turning into a great thread, for me especially!

[rudi]

It's the second secret of minimal, of course (the first being the music you're not hearing). Trying to explain to my older sister why a ride cymbal coming in after 32 identical bars was so thrilling (I think I was playing a Punisher track) proved fruitless; some people just aren't meant to get it, I guess. I feel much the same when around fans of REM.

[The Boston Crab]

(the first being the music you're not hearing).

Go on...

On a related note, I've been reading a great book recently, not got that far into it but I can fully recommend:



Buy it through Neil's Amazon link.

[placeholder]

Philip Glass - Dance 1

[Serge]

Anyway, here's Stereolab's "Metronomic Underground", which seems to fit the remit of this thread. Definitely a huge steal from Can's bass line to "Yoo Do Right" of course.

I always thought it sounded like 'Yoo Doo Right' crossed with 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised'.

[xxxx xxx x xxx]

Ah, you can't beat a long, repetitive outro that just ploughs its own furrow for as long as it takes. There's something comforting about a chord sequence that keeps coming back to its starting point and going round again and again and....

Here's probably my favourite example -

The Velvet Underground - What Goes On (Live 1969)

This one used to keep me amused back in the day -

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=flipper+brainwash&aq=0&oq=flipper+bra
(not a particularly work-safe video in places, it has to be said).

On a more highbrow note, William Basinski's 'Disintegration Loops' needs a mention - short segments of orchestral passages looped and left to run until the tapes started to disintegrate - much more beautiful and absorbing than it sounds!  Here's part one for those of you with a lot of time on their hands (there are four CDs of this stuff altogether):

William Basinski - Disintegration Loop 1.1

Finally 'Precious Mountain' by Quickspace.  What an under-rated band they were - just turn up the volume and shout along with it from the 7-minute mark onwards.

Quickspace- Precious moutain

Serge mentioned  a Ricardo Villalobos track that I'm not familiar with, but 'Enfants' is also worth mentioning - basically a sample of kids chanting taken from an old Magma track, put over a minimal drum machine rhythm and piano track and looped to infinity.  Brilliantly hypnotic!

Anyway, I've only just arrived at this thread and I haven't had time to listen to any of the stuff that's been posted yet, so that's my Sunday afternoon sorted.  Nice one OP, great thread idea.