Kevin: Ooh!
Ohh!
Ohh! Isaac: (singing)
Umu: You're now reacting to the boy group
Astro, and a b-side song off of their
2019 album called 'All Light'.
The lyrics express the pain and regret one feels after a breakup.
Daniel: Oh. Umu: This song composed by
Billage and the Astro members MJ and Jinjin. Daniel: It's a little too early to be depressed about breakups. Fiona; Let's get emo.
Elizabeth: Here we go.
Owen: (humming)
Elizabeth: We love a stepwise motion.
Ooh! Owen: Wow.
If you get that string run, that's just so small t.
James: Very moving music.
Brianna: Oooh! We love the evasion
Nick: Okay, now we're just in 6/8. It's a good ballad. Nick: I love ballads.
Owen: I like how he ends each phrase with a little guitar. Elizabeth: Kind of punctuated. Owen: Right, punctuated.
James: Oh, that's so pretty!
Nick: I love that little pop.
Aaron: What? Nick: I love that little pop, it's like... Both: (popping sounds)
Henry: I think those are vibes at the top.. Cloud: vibraphones
Henry: It's really gentle.
It's almost like hand bells, like a muted hand bell.
Kevin: Ooh!
Ohh!
Ohh! Isaac: (singing)
Kevin: Mmmmm!!!
I like all of this. I like that, too. That's very good
Isaac: What a guitar riff. Kevin: This almost feels like a rock song. It's gonna...
Wow!
I spoke too soon. It's a soft rock song.
Yeah, there's a very riff-like quality to those instruments, those instrumental solos.
James: Interesting.
The speak singing is nice. Brianna: Yeah. James: It's very personal.
It's still a pretty melodic rap, though. I feel like
each of the people who spoke while singing, it was still kind of pitched, so it fit with the accompaniment. Owen: Um-hmm.
Cloud: 4 5 6, 1 2 3 4 5 6
Henry: The hit is strong.
The strings are doing some fun stuff there. They're really noodlin'.
Cloud: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Nick: I love the string writing in things like this
cuz it's just pretty normal and then all of a sudden you've got all these runs, and...
Aaron: It's pretty cinematic. Very dramatic. Uh, cinematic, dramatic go hand in hand. Nick: Oh, wait...
Brianna: They modulated! Ooh! James: Nice! Very cool.
Brianna: (singing) James: That was good!
Henry: That's when we know you've transcended your breakup, when you modulate in song.
Brianna: These harmonies (singing)
(singing)
(singing) James: Girl, you so xtra! I love it.
Brianna: (singing)
James: Girl, you've got these chord changes.
Brianna: (singing)
James: Oh, that was good!
Henry: Ohhh!
Cloud: That was a really nice rit(ardando).
Henry: Yeah, that's feel-good music, all the way. I can't tell you what the harmony changes, the harmonic relationships were that made it Cloud:You forgot the modulation, that was part of it.
Henry: that made it really happy, but I can tell you the timbres that do stand out,
is that
very lush orchestra sound, a lot of focus on strings. There wasn't a lot of brass in here. The only like percussion you had was
mostly the chimes. Cloud: The chimes and the vibes Henry: No, not chimes, what are they called? I'm not a percussionist. The
Cloud: Yeah, I call them wind chimes. Henry: The little sparkly, little metal things
were prevalent. A lot of focus on strings, running strings (singing).
Think, for example, a lot of Disney scores use that, like Frozen. Cloud: Frozen, I was just gonna say Frozen. Henry: Moana used a lot of strings (singing)
and
then
really bright, echoey piano
tied with acoustic guitar, Cloud: Guitar. Henry: especially the beginning. The harmonics,
Cloud: And the harmonics on the electric guitar, Henry: all really... Cloud: they're very open, very kind of like high
Henry: Yeah. All really feel good, really, really feel good. It evokes, I mean, it's tied to a lot of other things
we recognize in culture, just like Disney films, Cloud: Yeah. Henry: with like a huge emotional content. So that's why it's feel good.
It's not just because it sounds this way, it's how else we've consumed this kind of music before, but that's what I liked about it.
Umu: Good morning. Daniel: Good morning. Fiona: Aww, that's cute. Daniel: That's cute. Umu: What was cute about it?
Fiona: The way you were like, "Good morning!"
Umu; Oh, I'm cute. Daniel: You're like, this song isn't cute, but you are. Fiona: Well you made it cute. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right, it is cute.
Fiona: I do like the 3/4 and all the instruments, there's so many voices going on, it just feels like a big celebration,
even though it's not. Daniel: It's about a breakup.
Daniel: Yeah, it was pretty major mode for a breakup. I love how
instead of the beat dropping they just get to this,
it's like this rising
harmonic tension, to like a V. It goes like, I...It just releases so nicely and you're like, wow,
this is a very nice version of the beat drop and I just love that Fiona: They were trying to be like
experimental. Daniel: Yeah. Fiona: Which is kind of cool once in a while. Yeah.
Kevin: Astro, baby.
Umu: What did you like about it best? Kevin: All of it. It's very good.
The more I listen to Christmas music, the more I realize that Christmas music is all the same. Isaac: It's not Christmas music. Umu: This song was not released in wintertime, though.
Kevin: Oh, really? Umu: No, it was released in.. Isaac: What?
Kevin: Not really? That's called 'Bloom'. Umu: Yeah.
Kevin: Huh? Isaac: January. Kevin: Never mind. I think that's very interesting that I assumed that.
Kevin: Now, I don't know, I don't know what to say. Isaac: How do you turn back from that? Kevin: Yeah, right? Isaac: How do you rewind?
Kevin: It's good.
It doesn't quite me of spring, because one, the key is D flat, and all the flat keys
remind me of more fireplace, or snowy, or dark dark thoughts,
you know. Spring...The ending key, D major, reminds me of spring, but that's all like, weird
Isaac: It's called 'Bloom'. Kevin: association. Yeah, it is called 'Bloom', exactly.
But I'll just talk from a musical standpoint. The hemiolas were good,
the instrumentation was mostly good, the piano at the end was a little...
Maybe it's just the pianist in me,
I want the piano to be a little more outward. Key change, very cool--subverted it, but I kind of saw it coming,
but it's still surprised me, because they did it without any shame and they really nailed it
Yeah, the melody's really nice,
it's very melodic. You'd be surprised when melodies aren't melodic; happens more often than you think. Isaac: They live up to the name 'Bloom'.
There's a lot of things that just, they stir so nicely. So the energy's just,
compressed, and all of a sudden it just flourishes, as the instruments go to the
extremities, like where you have these treble lines in the strings, and things are just belting forward and pouring over the measure.
James: That was nice. Umu: What did you enjoy about it?
James: Well, okay...There are a lot of
She got some of her edges. Her edges.
She got some runaways girl Brianna: It's busted!
James: I thought there were a lot of
emotional ballad tropes. Brianna: Yeah. James: But I don't think they were bad.
They could have been like ah, yeah, I've heard all of this before, but it's not really done well,
so I'm kind of disappointed. It was not that at all.
The 6/8 feel, Umu: (singing) James: Yeah, the wind chimes, the strings with the ascending (mimicking strings).
The key change, that's a huge one.
Just like rip me apart with that key change. It's supposed to evoke a lot of...
It's just supposed to be a very emotional, like heartfelt .
Brianna: Yeah. James: thing, and I think it stayed true to that. It's not even a genre, that form,
I guess you could call it, really well. And I thought all their voices were really different.
MJ was like very velvety and smooth, and then there was a guy who like was sort of like sing-speaking,
which I appreciated. Brianna: It's like spoken word. James: Yeah, spoken word, almost like poetry. Brianna: Yeah. James: It's like very,
very intimate, up-close, like he's talking to you. Brianna: It wasn't one of those trap raps,
James: No. Brianna: or one of those raps to just change the beat,
it was a rap that was like emotion, like everything that they had in this
music, especially, was just like
emotion, and everything they did was just like emoting, and I feel like the instrumentation really helped that. Like, the intrude with...
intrude...
the intro with the violin-like chamber group, almost, I don't feel like there was more than like two or three
players on each part, but it was just super nice. And then how it went to acoustic guitar,
it was just a really nice subtle change, and was just like they added on more
instruments like that, on the drum and the bass, and that really helped build the excitement. And then when they modulated, it was just like,
yes! I needed her.
Kevin: All of the lights... Both: (singing). Kevin: Bloom!