Technical Critique And Musical Aesthetics

Artist: GoGo Penguin

Song Title: Branches Break

Instrumentation: Upright Piano, Double Bass, Drums/Percussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PCKYDwpihA

Analysis:

The song starts with a beautiful sounding upright piano playing low chords which begins rather left heavy with faint sounds of breathing giving the impression of sitting in front of a piano, which is shortly reinforced by the higher register of the piano playing in the right.

The piece gradually builds with the introduction of the double bass sounding breathy harmonics slightly off-center to the right. Throughout the piece the bass is playing layered sounds through synth pedals and a mixture of arco (bowed notes) and pizzicato (plucked notes).

The drum kit enters the piece with a strong central kick and rather wide percussion (jingle shaker) on left and sizzling ride on the right. The snare is quite central also and has a room verb sound to it.

The entire piece I believe is quite dry of effects. The piano seems to have a nice natural sustain and decay backed up with a subtle reverb with maybe a 1.7 - 2 seconds decay time, which envelopes the space and glues the song together. The drum reverb or percussion verb goes slightly unnoticed until the end when you can slightly catch a bit of pre-delay on a shaker and snare in the silence of the other instruments. The song arrangement is well crafted in the sense that every instrument has it's own space.

Aesthetically the song doesn't have a clinical studio vibe. While the signals are clean and well defined, there's a certain live feel to the track which I believe is attributed to a well captured Live-esque session. A band well known for this is Snarky Puppy. Check out "Binky" from their "groundUP" Album - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ99OMlI5cg