Cloud: Whoaaaa Henry: I love it
Umu: Cacophony right?
James: Really?
U: Yeah! J: Oh my god...you're spoiling me.
U: Now you're reacting to- J: (makes noise) Okay, sorry.
U: You're now reacting to the K-indie artist Cacophony and her title track called "Return" from her 2019 album called Dream.
Dream from the first to ninth track describes the process of love and breakup.
Cacophony has repeated this process a few times in her life in different colors.
She says that it felt like walking on a Mobius loop. So, she couldn't help naming the first track "Coming Back".
The song is about returning to someone familiar and safe after being alone and beaten down by life.
She expresses anxiety about the reunion also hope. This song was composed, produced, and written by Cacophony and the pianist in the track is...
Daniel: Jo Sung-In? or Sung-In Jo, yeah.
Kevin: The beginning that's a Mobius strip right there in the video, and with Cacophony she always does something really crazy in her videos. So I'm excited to see and hear what she has to offer.
Yes. Three, two, one.
K: Yeah. Isaac: Okay...
K: That's... I: Evocative
K: Wow.
J: This is already art.
Her eyebrows are white.
K: Starts with breathing...
Fiona: This is exhale...the song is...
O: That's so cool how she sets up silence as like a bass...I mean because the song isn't like just noises coming out of something creating an environment
So I think that's brilliant.
Henry: Whew!
F: I like this. This has a wilting feel to it. It's like kinda creepy/cool fairy/nymph in the forest just singing.
Cloud: Whoa! H: I love it.
K: There's the Apple. Wow. Maybe to return or unite is a sin?
It is good piano playing though. Wow...the musical picture gets more more complex.
I: Harmonizing with herself.
Elizabeth: And then they're like... She's singing the same sort of like rhythmic fluid line but it's staggered so you get this kind of like wave effect.
K: Wow.
It risks clipping; it risks getting too loud.
That's so resonant. It's resonant to the point of like just breaking apart.
H: Whoa, what was that? C: It's so cool.
H: Ah! Ah! Counterpoint!
O: It has a very different feel when you can actually feel the eighth notes and as opposed to just the (vocalizes).
But the (vocalizes) really makes it more intense.
K: Ohhhh! It hits the F that time! Oh my gosh! That's excellent.
J: She's great at giving face too. Which is really important when you're trying to convey the message.
K: Like she's reuniting with this ball, but is she really happy? And what is the ball? You know...
H: I want the egg. Oh! Oh! Picardy third!
Brianna: Shit. J: Yeah. B: Shit. J: It's perfect. Like...
B: It was really well written. Wow. J: Like I've like I know like I've reacted to her a few times and I feel like I've gotten over the shock of like "oh my god everything's perfect".
Like we stan. We love her so much. Now I'm just kind of like I don't really know what to say.
It's artistic, it's...the lyrics are so relatable, so relatable. Like you're...you're going back to someone that you once had comfort with and...
B: And once she like finally gets there it like goes to major. I was just like J: Yeah. B: Yeah. We're both like mmm.
Like it clicked.
J: Like when she sings in like that like softer sound it's just like really captivating but then she starts projecting more. She gets this tone in her voice where it almost sounds like she's like screaming.
B: I like how she would get to that point but then she would go into her falsetto. J: Yes!
B: And it would be like super soft and nice... J: The transition?
B: Yeah and she just understands that the different like parts of her voice in how she can use that to convey her message. J: Yeah!
B: And like how she's screaming but yet that's when she would go into her falsetto and it was just really nice. J: Yeah. Exactly.
J: And like I don't... I like don't have any words. She's saying something and she's doing her thing unapologetically, and she's doing it really well. Like I don't know what more you want.
B: This literally sounded like something Beethoven could have written and she just added lyrics to it like that's how good it was.
Like I was like "Is this a sonata? Or like what?" cause like this is stuff we study in theory at Eastman.
Like I was like "Am i doing a dictation right now?" like "What is going on?" It was just so like put together and just like well thought out and just like so like musical...yeah advanced.
And just like...wow.
U: Is it just me or did you hear bass noises? Like (vocalizes) in the chorus?
O: Oh, no. E: Go back, go back! Get it! U: Go back to the last chorus.
O: The sul tasto sort of sound? Like really high up on the finger board? Meaning like breathy and open sounding.
E: I hear what you're talking about there's like the kind of like scrapey low noise. U: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
E: I don't think it's a bass. O: I think it sounds like a wind machine actually....sort of thing U: Huh...
O: In in Baroque music in order to like make a storm sort of feeling they would have a giant drum that was covered in sheepskin.
And the drum would have a handle on it and would have a little axle that it could be cranked around in order to make this like (vocalizes) sort of sound when it cranks against the sheepskin.
And it kind of sounds like that actually. E: I learned something today. O: It's very cool.
Aaron: I liked all of the like nautre-y type sounds about it I don't know in the beginning I thought it was really cool.
She used white noise and then there was silence and then the music came in. And I thought that was really cool.
But then as we got towards the climax of the piece our kind of fell that we changed genres as well and I didn't exactly... U: The bridge?
A: Yeah. I didn't exactly follow with that. I did like it though and I was like I thought it really showcased her voice well.
Nick: She's so good at doing like the really intense singing with like a heavy not like heavy percussion but like big percussion behind her and interesting chords and interesting harmonies.
And then she's also so good at doing this like folk song-y type thing.
And this song you get to absolutely hear both, because it started out so focus on me and then it like the climax of the piece and the ending of the piece were like a little more intense with a little I don't know exactly what it's called.
It's almost like Yodel-y voice crack type things that she does.
(vocalizes) like that? U: Oh (vocalizes)? N: No there's there's some like weird vocal technique that she's using.
I'm not exactly sure what it's called but she uses it in a lot of her songs, and this is no exception. Especially when she's singing something that's really intense.
And it it kind of fits with the like folk song-y type things that she does earlier, but I don't think it entirely like unifies it. And in a way that I was expecting as like a song as a package.
You know what I mean? U: Yeah. Interesting combination of things.
N: Yeah, and she does both of them extraordinarily well.
K: so she performs acupuncture on the ball at the end that's the moral of the story.
I: Oh is there more? K: Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh yea and the ball deflates okay nevermind.
I: I thought there was more. K: It's so busy but in a way that's I-I just really like it.
It starts off so calm and gently. Well not I wouldn't say gentle; it is very sorrowful. And she's sort of in the she's sort of belting right from the start.
She's in that middle dynamic. But you know at the beginning it sounds like a very calm waltz. One that's you know pretty sorrowful but overall calm.
Then as these dense instrumentations get added on it starts feeling a bit colder and a bit more strange and eerie. And I think that yeah that aligns with the message of the song.
I really really liked it. yeah I think it's awesome.
I: It's very similar to the Shostakovich's waltz. The thing is with the Shostakovich you're using the minimums or the low points and the high points as a foundational background of what the limits are.
As opposed to being free so (vocalizes) it's like "where is it going to?" and "like where's the joy?".
But this one is it really...it had that a little bit but then the top part, the vocal line, just kept going down and very just it's pushing down the baseline even more.
There's a hopeful freedom in it. In the way that Cacophony was trying to portray and I thought that was very well executed.
H: Oh I love it! I love the blend of timbres. C: I loved the different textures.
H: Yeah yeah. I really like the (vocalizes) those drums like it has a lot of...density, yeah. It has a lot of density to it.
And then pair that with her what I would like to still think of as really organically sounding singing.
Some of those electronic song sounds in the middle is makes for an amazing experience. C: Very cool.
H: I also liked towards like the two thirds in she throws in some really neat counterpoint in what I assume is a bridge.
C: That's something you didn't expect? H: Yeah!
C: I just loved like the text painting and stuff too. Like when she's talking like it's so windy.
and then the doubling that came in later...Like at first in the beginning I was just like on a couple phrases where you would just hear a voice doubling her or like doing some harmony underneath.
And you're like "Wait was that? What?" was because like it would just be in and then back or like in and out and then like it came back.
And then it like came to the drop and then it was just like so many voices and I was like "Wow it is so windy".
Like that is cool. It was great.
D: (to Cloud + Eli) You guys look so good! Cloud: *something something* trying to do my face...
I was literally shoving a bagel in my mouth before this. F: I put chapstick on my eyebrows to smooth them down.
U: Are you serious?! Fiona: yeah
D: Yo, whatever works. F: life hack