Henry: Ohhohohohohohohoho!
Ohhhh this is fresh as fuck!
[Rossini's Semiramide Overture plays]
Uhh… Station Lee Dong Woo?
Umu: Oooh… Henry: Do you not wanna?
Umu: No, ooh, this is a good "ooh".
Henry: Ah. Umu: It's like a "yaaasss."
Henry: Am I gonna explode? Umu: Oh yeah.
H: [gasps]
Umu: So now you're reacting to a Swedish solo artist, Orphée Noah, and his collaboration with the Korean artist Lee Dong Woo.
Orphée Noah is a jazz pianist and singer, who has co-composed QUITE a few K-pop songs before
that we've reacted to, but this time, you'll be hearing his single, called "Definition of Love"…
…and the song is about… questioning the meaning of love and friendship.
Collin: Wow. Alright.
Seiji: So love related… Stephen: Don't be… Seiji, don't be dark…
It's okay, man. (Seiji: So love related…) I love you. Seiji: Okay, thanks.
Peyton: Love and friendship! Here we… Charlotte: Yeah!
Melissa: This is cool!
Jarod: Ohohoho!
Melissa: Ooh, this is cool.
The voices seem like so… like, disjointed from the piano.
Oh my god, this is so cool.
Stephen: That's cool — that's a polyrhythmic thing, like, right there.
Like, the dotted quarter note with like… regular quarter note. In 3/4.
See, like right here…
Seiji: You know, it's not normal for you to be able to catch that so fast, right? [chuckles]
Peyton: Yeah, you can kinda feel it in like a 12/8, 6/8 type of feel.
Some kinda compound meter.
Stephen: It's cool too, 'cause like the feel that they're going for here is actually… it's like from…
…like, Latin music, um… Latin American music, like Afro-Cuban music. It's specifically called bembé.
Peyton: Oh!
[screams]
H: Ohhohohohohohohoho!
Oh, this is fresh as fuck! [laughter]
H: Nice string runs!
Kevin: Ooh. Um… inverted chords. Not in root position.
Always nice to hear.
A lot of them.
Ohhh… ohh…
#11?
Elizabeth: I can't… (H: Nice syncopated line!) I honest… I can't figure out what this meter is.
E: I don't know, and I LOVE it! H: It's all in 3 — it's all the same. It's cool, though.
It sounds like it's falling apart. Like…
Also, he's beautiful.
K: The structure of this song — like the arc… dynamic arc of the song — is really interesting.
P: Yes runs! C: Mm-hm.
P: Ooh!
James: They're both great singers. Melissa: Yeah.
And they blend so well.
H: I like that they've got this, like, [sings note] pedal point at A, I think… [sings note repeatedly]
Yeah. And then the harmony is changing underneath. That's SUPER smart. That's SO fun. That's so cool. That's really hip.
P: Ooooh!!
Stephen: Ooh!
OHH!
H: [bops]
Oooh!! [sings portion of bass line] This good… synth bass!
K: Whoa… ohh…
[noises of immense pleasure]
P: Ohh! Whoever tracked the drums for this… is a DIRTY motherfucker. C: Hm.
Stephen: OH! That was SO dope! He, like, obscured what the meter was… it felt like 4/4 for a second.
H: [bops]
H: Yah…
Ooohh!
That drumming is so tight! E: [ponders her life choices]
H: He just like, doubles up and does like… does simple inside triple? God, SO fuckin' cool…
Seiji: Jeez… jeez…
Stephen: That was wicked. That was wicked! Seiji: That was SUCH A GOOD—
Stephen: That was a… that was a GREAT. SONG. Seiji: That's… also… (St: Man!) really frickin' hard.
Stephen: We need more jazz musicians in pop!
Seiji: Hopefully… (St: That was SO…) people thought… hopefully the audience…
Stephen: Yeah, hopefully… Seiji: …thought that it… hopefully you liked that!
'Cause that was… that was really cool. Stephen: That's the stuff we NERD OUT.
When we're not doing this, we like… Seiji: …as you can see…
Stephen: We go get coffee and we nerd out about these things. Seiji: And talk about it forever and try to do it.
And then fall on our faces. And then… obsess about it. Stephen: Yeah.
Umu: It looks like you were having a mental breakdown during…
Stephen: It was SO… man… like… Seiji: It was… messed up! It was so messed up. Stephen: Yeah…
Stephen: So in jazz, like, when you play, you don't think of it necessarily as like a stock groove.
You're not playing the same thing. You're… it's a groove, but you're more like embellishing a lot on it.
And that's what he was doing here. Some of the stuff he was doing… like, a lot of the feel was like, very like…
[sings triplet rhythm] like triplet-y almost, like swing.
Um… and it was in 3/4. But what was really cool is… the way he would play his grooves, he would either
obscure what the meter was… he would make it sound like in 4/4, for example, with some of his fills.
It was… like what we said earlier, where he's not playing on the downbeat, he's playing on all the weak beats, which throws your ear off.
And then, near the end, they… like, he was playing a lot more soloistically…
…changing the feel from triplet-y… while THEY were still triplet-y, by the way…
And then was doing this, um… like straight 8th… like playing lots of 16th notes.
Like, you hear that in… I call it the washing machine, but like a lot of west African music,
Afro-Cuban music, Latin American music, where you have two different feels going at the same time.
And… yeah, it was really sick. Seiji: Yeah, it's like two different time feels.
Stephen: Yeah, that's what we were talking about earlier.
Stephen: [snaps 2-against-3 polyrhythm] Seiji: Yeah. Well, it's interesting… it's…
I think the reason why is 'cause, like, the whole song is set up in one time signature, and then all of a sudden…
…it's different. (St: Yeah.) There's two time signatures on one, and you don't know which one to choose.
Stephen: Yeah. But it still feels good. Like, you would still wanna dance to it, which is awesome.
Seiji: It was messed up.
Melissa: I love this song! It's so wild… it's like… James: Yeah… I'm just…
M: It's like, going everywhere… but like, cohesively. Like, it's…
…disjointed, but cohesively. So like, you're just like: "whoa, what's going on?"
But the repetition gets you into a groove. So like, the weird… weird rhythms, like…
J: Yeah. M: It feels like a groove. Because it repeats so much. J: [sings rhythm from song]
J: That's just, (M: Yeah.) like, going the whole time, basically.
And it's just so exciting, when you hear music that's so… kind of… complex like that, that you kinda just need
to, like, close your eyes, and like, process what's happening.
There were so many, like, interlocking layers, and things that just kinda worked…
For two people to produce music like that, like…
I wish I could just, like, see inside their brains, and like, know how…
…they can do that. 'Cause that's, like, insane to me.
K: Man, what's up with Swedish people?! They write the best music, they make the best films… what's goin' on here?
One thing I really like is… I mean, we have American artists who use the English language in weird ways, like
in terms of syllables. But I feel like it does take that extra insight, from people who are like…
…English isn't quite their first language, but they're, like, using it…
And so they… they write something like the chorus of this, where you're like…
"Whoa! My mind is being expanded! I didn't know English could be used this way."
That's really cool.
Isaac: I was focused more on the… Lee Dong Woo's, um… pedal.
'Cause it was just like… okay, it's a pedal, but it sounded very much like Morse code…
It was quite interesting. Isaac & Umu: [sing Morse code-esque rhythm together]
I: It's quite nice how it transitions from voice, and then straight into instrumentation. And then, it's like…
It even goes even further, because they have like… they start singing riffs above it.
So it kinda creates this, like, rising effect… like into the clouds…
And you just keep going, and then… it's… it's quite nice, 'cause it keep… every time…
…the chorus is brought back, they push the level even higher, so it's like descant.
They start flying up, like the riffs get more intense, or they're more elaborate.
Jarod: I finally figured out that rhythm.
So, basically, what was really cool about it was like…
So, obviously you're in like that… [counting in rhythm] 1, 2…
There's like a… really hard, like, duple, like, straight, square feel. But then it's like…
It's like… it's, you know, it's a hemiola using like the whole, like… you know, triplet stuff, but it's like…
If you're… in the context of like 6/8, or like 9/8, it's like quarter, eighth, eighth rest…
[sings rhythm]
So it's like… not just the [sings straight rhythm]
You have a little bit of… the syncopation within… within the hemiola, so you get like a… really cool…
So much compound coolness.
Collin: I actually wish they weren't so damn random… (Umu: [laughter]) with the polyrhythm.
No, seriously! Like I think, like, if there was some more, like, intent, as opposed to just, like…
Like, it's cool! Like, it's… it's… I'm glad they did that.
I wish there was like a theme, or something… within the poly—… which there is.
But like… towards the end it was just like…
[bleghhhp]
[blelghllgh] Umu: It's hard to grasp.
C: Yeah. Which is… which is fine. Like, I understand if like… that's not what you're going for.
But I think it would've been more effective if they did that.
But I still think… especially, like… since when have we heard… like, hand drums?
In any of the things we've listened to.
The subject matter was like… really sad! J: Yeah…
C: No, like seriously… Overall, like the emotional… impact is… pretty intense.
And it's interesting, because it's also not a byproduct of, um…
I mean, it's not a slow song, and there's not a bunch of like… minor chords.
So it's cool that they still pulled it off. I mean, I guess the visuals helped a lot. Uh… but still.
Well done.
P: But WOW. I am musically satisfied.
I know Charlotte didn't like that as much as I did. (C: No.) So…
I'm gonna go first, and then she's gonna contradict me, and it's gonna be great.
C: No…
Did I like it? Yeah. Am I like… "OHMYGOD!"? No. But like, that's a personal preference.
That's… not anything against what the actual music is. But… he can actually probably do a better job of
explaining and going into that, because he's into it. So I'm just gonna… here's the torch.
P: [whispers] Thank you. [accepts torch] C: You're welcome.
P: Well… um… C: [chuckles]
P: I thought… that they kind of… made it… super interesting, because it was… lilting, just like…
[sings, snaps, and stomps portions of rhythm]
It's super simple. I mean, they stick to a lot of the big beats. And like those triplet fill, or whatever.
And then, like, y'know, they start off with the… the other guy going: [sings Morse code-esque rhythm]
And then the drum set comes in and FUCKS EVERYBODY UP. It's just like…
[sings drum beat] Just like…
…totally layering this thing over top, that like…
…"fits"… but it pushes it big-time. Like he knows exactly where he's at. But like…
It just seems super spacey, and like… like, ethereal, like over top.
Which is SUCH a hard thing to pull off, and to make feel good. And they totally did that.
Which is why I said whoever tracked the drums is incredible.
But… yeah. Also just like all the, like, chord movement… I don't know what it IS… but I liked the choices they made.
I never felt like it was just kinda the same thing over and over again. Like, they… there's definitely repetition in it,
but like, just enough to kinda get the tune in your head. And then they would like… you know, maybe like…
…take a left turn, or something like that. Y'know, like, so it's… but…
I don't know. I really dug it.
E: Did you like that…?
H: Thought it was okay. E: [laughter]
H: [tiny scream]
It was really good. Drumming was SO good. The… rhythmic interplay was just SO frickin' cool.
And it's kinda hard listening. It's sort of… music for musicians. But it's… I thought it was awesome.
E: Yeah, I think… the way that they split the responsibilities in the song was really… well done.
That division… like, it still had… let them each have personality within the song, and each let them express what they wanted to say.
But also managed to, like, blend into a kind of song that…
…keeps you on your toes, and keeps you guessing, and keeps you excited. It was really…
It was really cool to listen to. I liked it a lot.
Umu: Hello everyone! I'm Umu, ReacttotheK channel creator, and I'd like to thank you for watching this video.
I really hope you enjoyed, or learned something from it.
If you'd like to support us, or help ReacttotheK grow, you can do so by visiting our Patreon, and help us out by pledging any amount you can. 'Til next time!