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yellow-beacon · 5 years

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Sorry not sorry

First of all, and I don’t know where to start so this will be less of a reaction and more just rambling, and literally no one asked for this but I’m writing it anyways.

Ateez DO NOT DISAPPOINT!!!! Literally every song on this album is a whole bop. I’ve been listening to it on repeat since it was released and even after the first initial, “I-love-every-song-because-I’ve-been-looking-forward-to-this-for-so-long” in love feelings had settled, I genuinely love every song. JUST OMG I CAN’T STRESS THIS ENOUGH BUT THIS GROUP IS CELEBRATING THEIR. FIRST. YEAR NOW IN OCTOBER!!!!! The production value is so high it’s insane!! and this goes back to the previous three mini albums, like maybe it’s just me but I can literally put every song back to back and listen through their entire discography without feeling just an “eeh, maybe I should skip this one” and that’s crazy.

So, a bit more about the individual songs,

1, End of The Beginning: OMG this will resonate within you, wherever you live on this planet and don’t try to convince me of anything else. Couldn’t have started out better, got chills the first time I heard it. From the chanting to the way it sounds like they’re ready to go to war, to the transition into wonderland.

2, WONDERLAND: This is the title track if I’ve ever heard one, strong beginning, I’m hella biased but I’m really happy that Joong is the one who sets the bar for the whole song. Not even kidding, I UNIRONICALLY DAB THROUGHOUT THIS ENTIRE SONG. it’s just one of those songs that you can’t listen to without having the need to move whether you just wiggle your shoulders a little or walk to the beat of the song or move your entire body. Yunho and Seonghwa are really shining through with both strong vocals and overall presence through the entire song.

3, Dazzling Light: OK OK OK, my favorite on the album. The drum beat, their voices, the lyrics, the way that Joong and Mings is rapping after around 2:20 to 2:40 and then the way the song just drops afterwards, and Jonho’s long fucking “Oh, tell me who you, who am I” and I’m just gone, I’m acsending into the heavens, just… ah, there’s something about this song that just makes me want to walk down barefoot on a beach with the wind howling in my ears

4, MIST: Not gonna lie and (god, I’m gonna get so much hate for this, but it’s only MY opinion, ok) the beginning, instrumentally low-key resembled Jimin’s (BTS, obv) ‘Serendipity’. I think that they use the same kind of melancholy background noises (I don’t know anything about music or music production but you know what I mean right? The light, drip-drop-y kinda sound. Whatever, overall, the song is a slow bop. Vocal line is just AMAZING. The harmonization, the way their voices blend, and let me just tell you; This is Wooyoung’s song, boi did such a good job and I’m so happy he got the recognition he deserves (next up is Yeosang, am I right?? *sad yeehaw*) Joong made me cry, like just seriously listen to his rapping with lyrics and try not to feel emotion because it’s god damn impossible. This is the song I’m gonna be listening to at 2am when I can’t sleep.

5, Precious (Overture) Bruuuuuh, freaking chills. The beat, the way the song seems to change like every 15th second, their voices, Mings rapping, the fucking drop with the windpipes? The “My precious, precious” the slight but noticeable change in the lyrics to ‘treasure’ the deep humming at the end. Phenomenal.

6, WIN: The way this song goes from a sort of tropical to a heavy bass drop with the biggest “fuck you” is a whole mood. I dunno, has a kinda pirate-y vibe. The way the beat keeps on changing really gives it a funny, fresh feeling and the “We don’t know what’s next but we know who’s next” is just the line of the century. A nice bop that I totally like, but it’s not my favorite on the album.

7, If Without You: Such a sweet song, honestly. I just sway to the beat to it. A song to sing along with and I really think that they had a lot of fun making it since there is a lot of background harmonization and added sounds here and there, especially in the end with all the hilarious ‘whoas’, ‘aahs’ and ‘ooohs’ A funky song with nice vocals.

8, THANK U: BOI I CRIED!! D: Honestly Mingi is shining through so much with this song and it just felt so good to hear that because even though Joong is my bias, he has gotten a lot of lines in previous songs and I’m just happy to see that the line distribution between the two of them has evened out a bit better. The way it sorta turns into a sentimental rock ballad as soon as the chorus hits though? My 2009 emo heart is singing. I think it sorta has ‘Promise’ (Ep 2. Zero To One) sorta like “you and I” vibes and I’m here for it, I really like that, a powerful, soft bop, very nice.

9, Sunrise: This is the most uplifting song of the century, but just the fact that’s about their trainee days and that Joong was crying when he wrote it makes me all emotional :’( Everything is on point, the rapping, the vocal line, the instrumentals, the way that the pre-chorus has this sorta “through-a-phone-call” add-on that makes it seem like the members has called you and just wants you to keep pushing forward. There is this constant, boom-clap-boom-clap beat throughout the whole song that just makes me sure that it’s gonna be amazing live with thousands upon thousands of Atiny’s clapping their hands. Amazing rapping, amazing vocals. The bridge is just fantastic. A beautiful song, A+. Outstanding job with the lyrics, Joong.

10, WITH U: A Ballad for Atiny, I’m not crying, you are. Has this sort of crinkling add on in the background that reminds me of rain. The piano instrumentals and the boom-clap-boom-clap that is a familiar friend by now makes their appearance. The line distribution is sorta good, the way that San breathes in before starting off, what I think is, the pre-chorus is just wonderful and then the way that Yeosang ties the knot at the end of the song is just A+. I honestly love this song, it’s just one of those ones you listen to when you feel kinda down and you need a little something to cheer you on.

11, Beginning of The End: OMG, first off, the jungle atmosphere with noises of fire crackling and the music just so flawlessly rolling in like waves is amazing. It’s unexpected, with instruments I never expected (like what is that sound at around 0:34, an electric guitar?) The “open your eyes” It really feels like The End of an Era (™) and wow what a song to finish of the adventure on. Feels like a track from an epic movie, the end credits are rolling and the ship sails off in the distance. Perfect.

All and all, I think that the boys did a wonderful job with this album and I will continue listening to it until my ears falls off. Please share if you have any different thoughts than I had, much love ♥

#ateez #my own opinion #ateez ep. fin. all to action #my reaction #ateez seonghwa #ateez hongjoong #ateez san #ateez mingi #ateez yeosang #ateez wooyoung #ateez jongho #reaction to my wholesome beans

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adrianvarelablog · 7 years

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Post Brexit: what is, really, music without borders?

New Year's Eve 1989, atop the Berlin Wall with a hammer in my hand, was one of the greatest moments of my -and not just my- life. It wasn't only the Eastern and Western Germans, nor the reams of world citizens like me affected. I also witnessed embraces in more unexpected configurations, as in between Argentine and English strangers, fresh from the 'Malvinas/Flaklands' fallout, crying together under the Brandemburg Tur.

Like our instrumental technique which every day gets either a little bit better or a little bit worse, the distance between people, and peoples, is in constant motion. Brexit is a big, sad step in the opposite direction from the night on the Berlin Wall.

And yet people continue to hold the belief that 'music unites us'. A Beethoven 9 sprang up almost sponteously the next day in Trafalgar Square. Did the power of the music sway anyone's feeling on their vote? Did anyone who had not heard classical music before feel 'Wow, this is me now, I'll bin my Drum & Bass playlist'? I don't think so. I know many people who listen to an entire piece of good music (classical or popular) and feel it could not be further from their personal taste, and always will be. I know because I tried it: playing different music to my colleagues, students, friends, even my children. The beauty and message of Beethoven's unifying music would seem to be a separate issue to the recent political decision. 'Quite rightly!' I hear you say. But if a work that says 'all men shall be brothers' is loved by individuals on both sides of the divide, whilst half of those are happy to enjoy the music and theoretical message AND simultaneously negate that very message in practice, where does that leave us?

What then, is music without borders? Who can in all honesty agree with Duke Ellington that there are only two kinds of music, good and bad, no matter the genre? If you say you agree, are you capable of loving Mahler's 9th Symphony or Debussy's 'Pelleas and Melisande' whilst equally appreciating and loving the genius and beauty of Aerosmith's 'Living on the Edge', or The Cult's 'She Sells Sanctuary'... or vice versa?

In my experience the vast majority of people, musicians and non, are forced to answer, despite their best wishes, a resounding 'No'. Duke Ellington's quote sounds to most people like a great ideal, but it i's rendered meaningless if one asserts it in theory, whilst in practice retreating back into the safety of one's current aesthetic camp. In this case they are words as empty as a politican's lies, and music has borders and distances. Very well defined ones, thank you very much.

Years ago I read the fascinating 'Danube' by Claudio Magris. Magris journeys from the sources of the Danube to its mouth, tracing a vast array of philosophical, historical, and cultural ideas which sprang from the areas he travels through, showing them in all their interconnected, inter-influenced, un-isolateable beauty. The great Uruguayan ethnomusicologist Lauro Ayerstarán said 'folklore laughs at borders'. And Magris manages to convey the idea that all these ideas, peoples and places really are part of an unbroken stream.

So what would really borderless music sound like? In the 21st Century we are less tied geographically and culturally to any given place than ever before in the history of Man, with instant access to any thing the power of our curiosity can think of looking for, on the internet. I'm an Uruguayan-born Uruguayan-Italian national, grown up in Rio, New York, Vancouver but mostly Detroit and later Montevideo and Buenos Aires, who has lived in London for 20 years and has gone round the world several times, from the usual international touring destinations the Philharmonia visits like Japan, continental Europe and the USA to Hawaii, Santo Domingo and Heraklion. What happens when, say, contemporary Classical music meets folk-interpretation of said Classical music meets Tango meets Milonga meets the Blues (all of which are deeply rooted en ancient Greek tradition) meets the proposition of a pictorical musical setting of a city-scape?

Well, a piece of music is composed. What is this piece? For whom? Originally 'Ciudad' Campo' Ciudad' was composed in the guise of violin duo, premiered by Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Zolt Vistonay within an international concert season in Madrid as a piece of 'contemporary classical music'. But it is the same piece that opens the prog-rock album 'Laberinto' with a sound that belongs more to Glastonbury or Wembley than anywhere else. Anyone who hears only one version would never dream such a massive aesthetic chasm has been crossed. Anyone who hears only one (either) version, may also possibly only relate to certain portions of CCC's aeshetics: Classical musicians have noted the Classical handling of Folk music and structure whilst the Tango, Milonga and particularyl Blues (!) have completely gone over their heads. Conversely, popular musicians instantly pick out the latter while missing the former.

The rest of the 'Laberinto' (Labyrinth) album works similarly. 'EmBruchado' marries Nuevo Tango to the Bruch Violin Concerto. 'Coriolan' is Beethoven's overture played as prog rock, re-investing it with its original violence, diluted in 200+ years of erudite listening. The title track 'Laberinto' is a time-tested Classical form of Gong-inspired prog-rock material. 'Escape From Buenos Aires' crosses Piazzolla with Baroque canonical and fugal devices, again in Classical form. And 'Héctor en Miami' is a Latin-jazz 'Symphonie Fantastique Part II', complete with Berlioz's use of the Dies Irae, Idée Fixée and tubular bells in which, after the pains of SF1, all now ends well. Incidentally, 'Héctor in Miami' was originally composed as the last movement of the 3-movement symphonic dance suite 'Danzas Fantásticas' for massive orchestra, which Philharmonia Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser Esa Pekka Salonen had initially planned to perform at the Hollywood Bowl, but Street Orchestra London beat him to the premiere during SOL's first ever tour just a few weeks ago.

So music without borders. Music taking from our neighbours, our friends, ourselves, acknowlegding our differences and incorporating them into one complete, harmonious whole. A musical demolishing of the Berlin Wall. A coexistence that brings us more together, not more apart.

I hope you can join us on 29 July at the Three Choirs Festival where we'll be playing 'Laberinto' live.

#Brexit #music #without #borders #berlin #wall #salonen #laberinto #labyrinth

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