LogFAQs > #964165807

21th
Game: Imperium
Title: Boss 2
Composer: Tenpei Sato, Tatsuya Sato, Hiroki Uematsu
Nominator: @FL81
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsEPSBlkuVU

So the start of this song apparently entirely adds up to just being 4/4. But you would never guess given how insane that accent pattern is. But I suppose I'm trying to say, this is more like a "weird rhythm" (erratic feeling choice of which notes get highlighted) rather than "weird barline placement" (odd time)

[5+4+4+4+4+5+5+1]/16 is what's going on here. is that clear enough? ok i will type something even more convoluted looking that explains it more precisely:

[1+1+1+2]+[1+1+2]+[1+1+2]+[1+1+2]+[1+1+2]+[1+1+1+2]+[1+1+1+2]+[1]

that clear things up?! now you can head bang to that part NO problem, right.?!

anyway the craziest thing about that is the single [1] at the end. it prevents this from being entirely 4s and 5s, and makes the loop point of this idea actually involve a /6/, if you combine that 1 with the first 5. there's not even really any thing to prevent you from feeling it as a 6, which only discombobulates it all even further, and I LOVE AMBIGUITY OF INTRICATE RHYTHMS OH MY GOD i love that so much

The chord changes are pretty bizarre too. Every time I hear this I feel like the flow is perfect. It begins with something sorta like djenty prog metal, and once it becomes rhythmically conventional it instead swaps the focus from [rhythmic oddities] to [tonal oddities]. This whiplash is pretty important to me actually I think...because it makes for a powerful like...energy shift. I can't really describe this in a non abstract way, but the intro is like the warning about incoming danger: unpredictable---the next section is facing that danger, and learning exactly how frightening and incomprehensible it truly is, even more than you'd have thought

Tenpei Sato worked on this ost?! I can't find much if anything about the other two composers, so no idea how to know who wrote this song, but if it's tenpei sato---way proggier than anything i'd heard by him if so. and i already liked that guy to begin with

here's my silly attempt at a visualizer for this one...:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq5UKxslqzE

it was very difficult with this particular song to get a cleanly timed and comprehensible piano roll layer to the visualizer for various reasons (i could try again later tho if you want). which is a shame, since i really wanted to make it clear to display exactly how strange the scales being used are and all that. i can still talk about it of course: i LOVE the portions where everything's moving in parallel, which IS visible even in that above visual mess. the parts that aren't this parallel movement stuff are super chaotic with so much going on at once too, and it's musically challenging to the point i would imagine a lot of people percieve it as total randomness. i certainly can't pick up and understand everything going on

i think what i like here is how many notes move by whole steps, which to me has always felt "proggy" when focused on, even the natural sequences of whole steps that show up within the most normal major scale. this song is like....using those

i suppose it's mostly actually all 'diatonic', the same sets of notes as a typical major/minor scale, but using really strange modes. i could list them but it's not really using the modes in a like discernable functional way, so it kinda loses meaning in some ways to describe it. it's using things like "locrian" (ie, B to B on all white keys) [insert 40 page debate about how locrian does not exist], but only if you interpret it in a certain way (honestly, i think the fact that locrian is a "weird mode" to the point of almost being a meme in how hard-to-use it is considered to be,,,,even in 1992, would be likely what this song was thought of as having been fixating on as a set of notes. because this song is obviously intentionally "strange" feeling and when you're coming up with fringe things to inject, well that's a pretty perfect one. even if others might not hear the same thing you do)

everything i just said should be taken with a grain of salt tho because it's like...changing scales and changing tonal center constantly with like 0 warning, to the point that it's probably best to not even think about what scales are being used and to just memorize the weird notes that you will be playing on the piano if you want to play this song on the piano.

i would say this is legit one of the strangest songs nominated for my topic in some ways, mainly compositionally. it goes from overtly "serious prog" bizarre, to "a 5 year old could make this?" bizarre, to "WHAT" mind explosions. like i'm not sure where the line even is in this tune for which parts are which of the things i just said. It reminds me a lot of over-nove in a way, proggy but in a way that's like "fuck you" almost punk-prog way. this doesn't give a shit about grandiose presentation or actually impressing anyone, it's wacky for the sake of being wacky, pissing in the face of any perception of musical "rules" rebelliously, and i love that!