MP3: Alog - Son of king
Outside of the lead track "King of men", the new Alog record "Amateur" is pretty darn disappointing. It's sonically interesting, as expected, but not compelling. So let's just stick to the song at hand then: "Son of king" is a pastiche of words and notes, cut and pasted together to form a cohesive piece of music. I find the narrative hard to follow without the subtitles of the video, but even then, I'm more interested in the sound and cadence of the words than what they are saying. As for the instrumentation, everything is percussive: xylophones, bells, chimes, wood block, maybe even some thumb piano. The spliced-together nature of the arrangement creates a stuttering, jittery effect, but it still flows fairly smoothly despite its ricky-ticky nature. The best part however, comes around minute three when the voices drop out and the music breaks down to nothing but alarm clock. Slowly the piece builds up again with disparate melodies being carried by the wooden and metallic elements. The backing rhythm remains stable from there on out and the voices become more insistent, eventually running along just as steadily. It's an amazing piece of work, not just technically (I can only imagine the hours spent putting each tiny sample together), but also quite pleasing to listen to.
Alog - Son of king