[Applause]
[Music]
yeah really
but i liked it savage
oh man
i'm a
savage
so you are now reacting to the
four-member girl group espa and their
2021 release savage in next level we
were left off
so in the song next level that we
recently reacted to we were left off in
the quangya where espa and navis are
looking for the black mamba who hacked
the real world's connection to their
eyes but as soon as they arrive at their
destination the black mamba attacks and
traps them in a hallucination quest
which is another realm where black
mamba's venomous poison causes them to
hallucinate what will happen next we
don't know
yeah that sounds pretty cool if they
don't win that's gonna be a major
subversion of my expectations
the song is composed by jolly jeremy tay
jasper and kirsten collins of who we had
the absolute blast of interviewing about
the creation of this song i remember
walking out of my session and there's
look at this little briefing room and
like you can kind of like hear what
other people are creating in the other
rooms but you don't want to like disturb
them and remember we go out there like
the anr's out there all we hear is it's
like metallic sounds and kirsten is just
the song is also co-composed by you
young jin and i am sorry if i'm
mispronouncing this but hop boy rich
isn't that hobart like french for oboe
maybe it's that oh like
no wait that's just is it
rich
cool three two one
wow
oh
oh my gosh
don't you know i'm a savage i'm a killer
narcella
ah
[Music]
i love all this industrial percussion
there are three versions of oh never
mind there
[Music]
the
basin there's a cool like chromatic
common tone thing going on in the
harmony in the background
nice
[Music]
oh i love this long build up
ooh i like how this
she showcases the timbre of her voice so
well
oh
that glass shattering was crazy
[Music]
speaking
[Music]
it's like they're going in between kind
of like rap verses that don't have any
tunnel center but then they're using
notes like from the chorus
the verse is still my favorite texture
in this song
[Music]
it goes higher it's like the 12 bar
blues but
but strange
the piano bass and the vocal harmonies
in the back
are very very ethereal
and then it gets more electric
and we have a synth kind of
constantly going on
[Applause]
the growl
[Music]
it's interesting how silent the chorus
is
[Music]
and now adding in a pitch
almost looks like electronic marimba
[Music]
it's so major when she showed up what
the heck
[Music]
okay
whoa that's cool
really clear sound
[Music]
chiato in that timbre
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
i'm scared where'd they go i have no
idea where we are key change i think
we're in a different key that it was
before
i cannot find tonic
where are we
major
[Music]
where is she
oh my god
i'm just overwhelmed dude i
what yes yes exactly
what no way
what
that's a good question what the [ __ ]
those are the most interesting songs
i've heard
it wasn't bad it was pretty damn good
but it was just very interesting you
when you first started listening you
said you were confused did you continue
to be confused yes i'm like really
confused i was gonna say it again
confusion
it's confusing at first because the the
changing section every keys are
different then there are not much of a
relating element in between the sections
but then afterwards i think i kind of
get used to it and i i feel like it's
very
interesting
actually
because it's like oh i can really feel
the chaos and then that's probably what
the song is about yeah i like the
creativity of the sounds a lot i do like
the contrast a lot between like the
bridge and everything else it stays
surprising like without well it's not a
lot of things it doesn't it doesn't just
use the same thing the whole time right
it
it keeps putting in changes where like
oh that's that's not quite where i would
have guessed that was going oh exact
opposite for me nothing was surprising
but i think that's just because my
expectations for sm entertainment songs
yu yung jin production and espa in
general is ever since next level is just
a combination of various sm group sounds
so i'm like okay the b chord sounds like
this group the chorus sounds like this
group the verse sounds like this group
that kind of thing that that's and so i
was like okay oh yeah this is this is sm
like the bridge and like towards the end
with like all these riffs and stuff this
reminds me of there's that one song by
xo um
i was like that's sm no the the
beginning reminded me a lot of next
level just like where they
like kind of where they ended off just
because like i don't know it's the
sparse instrumentation with the chorus i
think
is what does that and like they use the
same drum sounds i think they continue a
lot of the ideas in next level this sort
of offers a different
side of it because the instrumentals are
a little more sparse like just sort of
sonic world i do feel like we're
learning more of espa's sensibilities as
a group in next level there's always
like a cushiony base where i feel like i
could rely on no matter where it went
and then even the part where they do
change it feels very lush this feels way
less lush even when there are more
chords like in the pre-chorus and the
other pre-chorus their two pre-choruses
they keep a
less spacious sort of sound it still
feels kind of narrow it still feels kind
of kind of closed off and i like it in
the beginning
my immediate thought was um harsh like
it's a very
harsh sound instrumentation i think it's
because it was very percussive but that
sort of kind of
spatial
for customers like it feels cold it
feels harsh yeah they've gone for a very
sort of sparse sound but with really
creative sounds in it a lot of it's very
dry like there aren't a lot of song
sounds that that have reverb or that are
big sort of sustained pads like a lot of
it's either percussion or things that
are doing like
where it's like it's not completely just
like a
but it doesn't have some big
tail that sort of makes it
sustain or hold around
[Music]
i can analyze the keys but i think
they're not that important
it's just like a color it's just like a
different color
i was thinking it was in f-sharp overall
but then felt like it might have been
lower the last time but i it for some
reason just like when i tried to detect
pitches it was just not working
oh my god what is the bass note
i hear an f i hear an
e five minutes later
oh my god this is
[ __ ] with my ears much much much
later honestly it sounds like it's in
between an enough for me oh my god okay
that's what i hear you were right when
you say earlier that one of the baseline
is kind of like off-key vindication
[Music]
i think the first one is just e minor
it's like go to like one to four
[Music]
and then goes to f sharp minor
immediately like no relationship at all
it's weird because in the pre-chorus
tonality is so grounded
because there's more pitch to the bass
yeah
and you got that definite leading tone
right
this is this i like this part
dude the glass shattering sound with
this snare is such a cool sound that's
so so dope i i kind of feel like they
kind of capture the the dubstep feeling
a little bit because stuff says just
like so many sound effects that there
are just no keys at all it's just growls
i think the sparseness of it is actually
pretty attractive
to me i think that's really nice i think
it's really interesting that uh juyong
mentioned the space because that was
actually something that i was kind of on
the fence about i think space and
silence is very effective
but the thing that i was really sad
about is that maybe it's just like my
expectations of world building
especially for like things that have an
electronic influence i really like it
when it makes it like
feels very big or like i i think that's
just what i really like right and this
is on the more minimalist yeah
especially that like drop i was really
excited when the glass was shattering
because i thought we were gonna get
something huge
and then it didn't exactly and then it
kind of drew me back i'm curious if that
was intentional i think it's because
it's carrying the same vibe as next
level which also only had a few layers
gotcha because in that case then it's
less of a criticism for me and more of
an observation because i think how they
did that and how they kind of like
maneuvered my expectations of the song
was really effective if that was the
case just kind of like delving into sort
of like minimalism and sort of
experimenting with
minimalism within a drop i like how they
played i mean i talked about it in the
the beginning of the song but i like the
different sections to play with the
levels they also played with the pitch
at which they spoke insane
um so like a lot of the verses that they
wrapped was really high in their
speaking voice and then they would go to
pre-chorus it would start low in a
singing voice and slowly build up back
to like a belty high sound to build the
energy back up and that was that was a
clever way to peel back that sound
without sacrificing like instrumentation
use literally literal pitch low to high
throughout
looking at the translation
like there's purpose to everything even
like their accents where they certain
words fall and are accented i think of
like punch like that was accented so
vocally i was like yeah there's text
painting in here the chorus and the post
chorus were sort of like a poor man's
verse to me in terms of the feeling yeah
i agree i think the verse that sets up
the song so well
that when the chorus
goes back to a quote-unquote it did feel
like a poor man's version of the verse
because the verse had that really icy
instrumental in the middle
where you can hear it's like in the
treble-ish middle-ish area it's almost
like a techno industrial thing exactly
yeah and that just gave it so much
character and i don't think the other
sections quite lived up to it the bridge
is its own beast i also love the bridge
i do i will say that what key do you
hear the
[Music]
bridgette i am
faking the melody but isn't that roughly
the harmonic outline yes yes okay
[Music]
[ __ ]
okay
yeah that's it the bridge the bridge
goes into b minor
you've been here and then you have that
we're like okay that's a phrygian two
and then i think it's starting a
progression that's starting around f
sharp
[Music]
now like the actual
progression feels more centered on b
it might be in d the thing though
is there is a whole have you heard of
major mode bias what is that there's
like this theoretical analysis of
popular music that states that like
statistically it's been proven that
there is a major mode bias so when you
listen to something that's ambiguous
like this where you're like where is it
most of the time but do you hear the
base progression it just went
which is
[Music]
and then where did we go at the end
it just like it like changed and then it
changed again and both of us were like
everything changed when n navis came
because there was the whole major
section and then everything when it went
back was like all over the place
what's the what the heck is the tonal
center
[Music]
just like the last minute of the song
it's just like oh my god
oh and then there's an e minor in the
yeah the petal
base
oh yeah here it's like we reach
somewhere new
that's going to be yeah i was going to
say i think that's what they mean it's
the b major
yeah
yeah yeah we're in g sharp now what so
far one react pair thinks it ends in b
major the other react pair thinks it
ends in g sharp minor
i mean it's the same thing
so they they contain the same
notes yeah they just came the same notes
they just start on a different level
yeah g sharp minor and b major but then
there was also something that happened
[Music]
which is a major because the face sounds
like a um there's like a counter melody
and then often times we will put like a
sharp four so that it sounds kind of
smooth it's starting the bass to me
sounds like it's turning on a flat and
then going
but i don't think that's not what i
worry about if you have a bass line that
low that it's not total there are so hey
it's not really a no i wouldn't say it
ends in a key here what there's when you
have that low vibration you're you pull
in other vibrations too and there's
going to be a ton of overtones so i feel
like it does not end in a key
you heard it here first folks
the kids that don't have perfect
pictures saying there is no key people's
ears are so different so they're like
drawing yeah people hear things
differently yeah can you imagine how
hard this is to sing
i'm sorry i'm just like yeah like i'm
just thinking about it like ridiculous
man this is like my a total theory about
morgan
it kind of seems battlefield because of
that like here's the savior and now
here's all this entropy and chaos
afterwards like you don't feel like
there's a tonal center but here's all
these themes that we you heard through
the entire song that's gonna come back
give me give me now the singing on top
of it uh all the dubstep from that break
um there was a cool like it kind of felt
like a big like
opera octet at the end when everything's
super chaotic in a cadence somehow um at
the end i kind of like that chaos
especially because all the chaos was
familiar like you heard all the thematic
material in the beginning of the song
if you hear that tritone that's kind of
what makes it really kind of eerie at
the end is that like it could be a
tritone and i think that makes it like a
b dominant
7 which would be really nice because the
melody is fully and b so it looks like
we're trying to go to we're trying to do
like uh
but it never happens
never goes to e
so i think that's why there's like an
uncomfortableness
i think that was really cool
i [ __ ] with that
hopefully that's that's not going to
help because
i confused the whole thing even more now
you guys are like see i told you like
we're gonna be going to war and i'm
gonna point it on
go off liam okay so is that dorian then
with the with the flat seven