Decagon 001

Miguel ft. Travis Scott - Skywalker (2017)

Production: Miguel, Happy Perez

Songwriting: Miguel, Jacques Webster II, Rogét Chahayed, Nathan Perez

Skywalker is a song of its time. Pretty much anything with Travis Scott is a direct throwback to the late 2010s. It’s smoky and spacey, with a bit of psychedelia implied in the production and lyrics. The production is sparse but not empty, leaving loads of room for Miguel and Travis’s vocal deliveries to take centre-stage.

The rhythm section is centred around a standard 808 drum machine with a touch of reverb on the clap and snare. The hi-hats are minimal, with an open hat on the “2-and” in every bar, supported at times with closed hats given some phaser treatment and set very low in the mix to keep the momentum moving forward in the sparse drum track.

Our harmonic movement comes mostly from the sub bass, playing a slow, syncopated 3-note ostinato between B, C#, and A#, centring us in B major. At 31 Hz, B1 is at the bottom end of what the ear can hear; luckily the sub is supported with overtones, helping the bass to translate onto smaller speakers while still sounding deep. We also get some chorus and stereo modulation in the upper frequencies of the sub, filling in the low end of the track with some tasteful thickness

One of my favourite things about Skywalker is the implied harmony, despite the sparse arrangement: the chorus is a simple pentatonic melody (literally all black-keys) with many repeated notes. Interestingly, the vocal melody is centred around A#, making a tasty major 7th interval above the B in the sub bass:

Other harmonic elements, such as the electric guitar splashes drenched in reverb and the rolled keyboard chords, serve as “melodic fills,” supporting the phrasing within the structure of the track rather than moving it forward through harmonic changes.

Without a doubt, the most characteristic part of the vocals is Miguel’s casual major-9th jump in his vocal melody, jumping from the middle of his vocal range into a confident head-voice. It really stands out from the rest of the vocal melody, which remains within a narrow pitch range and heavily relies on repeated, monosyllabic notes (which is par for the course in 2010s pop to now).

HOMESHAKE - Every Little Thing (2017)

Production: Peter Sagar

Songwriting: Peter Sagar

HOMESHAKE is the project of Peter Sagar, who first came on my radar as a member of fellow Montrealite Mac Demarco’s live band. The relation is clear, but HOMESHAKE’s sound is distinguished by really interesting harmonies and more adventurous decisions with the instruments.

The keys are the backbone of the track, a pretty classic analogue square-wave sound with plenty of voices or Juno-esque chorus to thicken and spread the sound out, as well as giving some of that delicious detuned flavour that makes this genre so groovy. Notice the top voice of the three-note voicing doing most of the moving, resolving a 7-chord into a first-inversion chord based 3rd downwards (DM7 -> Bm, C#7 -> AM, etc.).

Also, did I mention that the entire song is -20 cents flat?

The square-wave bassline pairs nicely with the square-wave keys, with a quick envelope on the filter attack, giving it its “womp-womp” character. It outlines the chords with a repeating rhythmic idea, with a nice little walking turnaround in the last bar of every 4-bar phrase.

In the background we have some nice pads doubling the keys, which very likely could be the same exact sound as the main chords, but with a longer attack and darker filtering. It’s low in the mix but gives much needed space to contrast with the tight and dry drums. This crowd tends to like their drums either bone-dry and dampened with some really tight 70s drum heads, or with some compressed reverb, Pink-Floyd flavoured slap echo, phasers, and so on.

Noah Slee & MELODOWNZ - Lips

Production: Noah Slee, MELODOWNZ

Songwriting: Noah Slee, Juri Nathan Ben Esser, Bronson Price

Firmly sitting in the realm of Neo-Soul is Noah Slee’s Lips. The most standout thing about this track (and the Neo-Soul genre) is how full and clean the track sounds, despite having relatively few actual elements. It’s a textbook case for good sound selection, mixing, and production supporting the less-is-more philosophy to music.

Lips’s mix is crispy, letting the vocals take most of the focus in centerstage, with the instruments having plenty of space to breathe further back in the mix with thick, lush reverb filling in the space between the sparse arrangement of the track.

The whole track is based on this repeating 2-bar, 2-note organ synth motif. The overtones of organs tend to give the impression that chords are thicker and more complicated than they actually are; despite the chords’ fatness, they’re actually just two-note intervals. Choosing the right instrument can bring fullness that can’t quite be copied by massive chords with thinner sounding instruments. Especially when leaving some harmonic ambiguity is actually fitting, as it is here. The voice and tonal centre allow us to “fill in the gaps” of the 2-note voicing: Dm - Gm7- Am - Bb alternating with a Eb (bii) (or Neapolitan Chord if you wanna get fancy) every 8 bars.

Our main synths are given ample space, staying in the background until the first chorus, when they enter after a loud silence and vocal fill, filling the frequencies up in the mix while widening it out. The bass might be played on the same instrument, perhaps with a simple sin wave sub just for thickness. But there’s some clear stereo image trickery going on here, because the synths here are just fat, wide, and creamy. A really nice touch is the 1-octave glide on the first notes of the progression, suggesting a bit of influence from Flume, whose Glide/Portamento switch seemed to always be set to “on.”

The mix overall glued together and locked in rhythmically with a string side chain all our harmonic elements, every kick seeming to suck all the air out of the room, just for the elements to return quickly shortly afterwards. The vocals are given lots of space as well, thickened up with a tastefully long reverb, along with some little chops and ear-candy to keep things fresh. The vocals are double-tracked on “you know what I’m talking about” right before the chorus, giving some thickness before setting up the chorus.

Incubus - Just A Phase (2001)

Production: Incubus, Scott Litt

Songwriting: Alex Katunich, Brandon Boyd, Chris Kilmore, José Casillas II, Michael Einziger

I might be biting off more than I can chew with this one- Incubus’s Morning View seems to have stood the test of time, having been live-streamed in its entirety for its 20-year anniversary. The album sounds of its time, but there are so many elements that have aged incredibly well, especially considering how many of Incubus’s fellow chart-mates have become “music I used to be into when I was younger" bands.

There’s really something timeless about this record, and Just a Phase shows exactly why.

There is no loud without quiet: contrast is really what gives the impression of loudness. We start quiet: Gavin "DJ Lyfe" Koppel scratches a really interesting sample of God knows what. It sounds like a digital shore break with a rhythmic sighing feel. Incubus did record this record in Malibu, after all. Another note: Koppel’s role in this track and throughout Incubus has always been active, making really critical electronic and soundscape contributions to the music throughout the production, which is more than can be said for the DJ in most nu-metal acts, who have the arbitrary scratch solo every now and then, but otherwise are free to run around stage.

Watch any tape of them playing and you’ll see and hear that he’s always up to something.

To the guitars: we get a really interesting and harmonically vague guitar line, which establishes a rhythm through the phrasing that we’ll hear once again in the climax of the song. We hear this arpeggiated melody in the first bar contrasted with a strumming B minor chord as other elements are given time to develop and establish themselves. We even hear strings!

Once we settle into the verse, we’ve switched to 6/8 time, the guitar outlining EM and GM, a contemplative and mysterious I-III chord progression as Brandon Boyd’s vocals come in. It’s deceptively simple but tough to play relaxed, particularly that little triplet we hear in the last bar, picked up and slapped by Dirk Lance on bass once he enters. It’s more or less modal harmony until we start to settle into a firm minor tonality as we get the deceptive build up to what sounds like a chorus, only to go back into the verse’s groove at 3:17. And the effect is amazing: teasing us with the heavy groove we’re waiting for, and then making us wait even more.

Let’s take a minute to acknowledge Boyd’s vocal performance here. in 2001, Incubus had decidedly taken a turn away from the nu-metal acts they were associated with in tour lineups, and Boyd’s vocal performance was often critiqued as soft, delicate, and too expressive for rock music. Looking at Incubus’s contemporaries like Creed, Disturbed, Puddle of Mudd, Limp Bizkit, and even to the yarlers like Eddy Vedder and Alanis Morisette, he has a delivery that has stayed fresh and original, for his own time and sounds surprisingly modern even today.

Finally at 4:22 we get rewarded with the hard groove we’ve been teased with. The rhythm of the phrase of the first guitar we heard in the track returns, and it is thicc. And my favourite moment comes at 4:48 with the entrance of the second rhythm guitar, squealing like it was just plugged in and doubling the first rhythm guitar, panned hard right. We have achieved maximum thiccness.

Thanks for reading, will be back next month for Decagon 002.

Take it easy, happy listening

Dom