Thinking Plague- Decline and Fall Parte 2a, Part 2a

English Version:

A Virtuous Man:

It starts in 4/4 rhythm, and like other songs of TP it gives me the impression, at least the first seconds of the whole tone scale. Maybe I am wrong.

Elaine's voice enter in a kind of vals 3/4, like a nurse "avant" song. Beautiful riff of the guitar, with touches of the piano and clarinet or sax... Percussion like maraccas also sounds.

Rapid passages of guitar, piano and clarinet. Echoes in the voice of Elaine. Some words sung "loud" with a little touch of "pop".

The guitar is in acoustic mode, probably Mike used his Ovation in this one. Good work of the drums and the bass that go inside and out of the rhythm. Piano chords, with tritones and other dissonant intervals around 4:30....to give the mistery-tension ambient typical of TP while Elaine sings about this and the other life.

Around 5:15 Mike's guitar changed into distortion mode...with some fast notes before a part without drums, full of clusters(closed keys) in the piano, bass notes of a wind instrument(Bass Clarinet)...to give Kimara a showcase to show his skills which are awesome. With a solo which is between jazzy and contemporary. Also the wind instrument seems to show some extended techniques...



Around 7:11, that wind instrument which gives a jazzy feel with the cymbals preceed the Elaine's voice and the organ sound which seems to anounce a kind of disaster...after all, it is a decline and fall, isn't it?.



Around 8:20 some of the most energetic and vigurous drums of the track...After that...an "opressive" atmosphere of "Strings" in the keyboards...

9:32 I love that melody at unison with the guitar and wind instrument....and also how they change into counterpoint.

I can say about this track that apart from the typical "avant" rock ambient, I can emphasize the word rock, I think it rocks than many other avant rock groups. This track has for me that feeling.

After all the answered questions Mike Johnson gave us about his influences and musical tastes I can say that I hear in this track clearly most of them, the complexity of Gentle Giant, the symphonic textures of some prog rock groups but also some of his Shostakovich and Schuman and some acoustic parts. Even some jazz rock textures. The song finished not in a bombastic way, but like if the sax and the keyboard are absorbed into a black hole.



Rhytmically it seems like other songs of the album and in TP style that they change quite a lot the time signature, but somehow I notice some parts in 4/4 or 3/4, and more sense of flow and less stop-stare-continue in this track.

The Gyre:

It starts with an ostinato of guitar in 7/4....very hypnotic one, just repeating i think one chord.

It seems Mike did hammer on/pull off or tapping to create it, or an echo pedal for it.

It seems also in whole tone scale, because it reminds me a little bit of the that scale in Fracture.

Of course, the piano and the wind introduced more notes.

It seems there is only a few break of the 7/4 in the 0:50.

The ostinatos gives a hypnotic effect, while when the drums starts to play and move "forward" breaks with the hypnotic part. Kimara and Mark Harris are the star of the first part, also Mike did a fine job. In 1:10 more or less, piano chords between a sort of jazzy contemporary classical music and Latin jazz.

Elaine enters later and she sung very little...it's mostly an instrumental track.

The wind instrument, i think a clarinet, it's in one key, with few dissonance notes.

Around 2:20 a kind of major-minor chords in a kind of moment or relaxation, or "fake" relaxation.Before the 3:00 very good "fraseo" of the guitar. It appears again in 3:05...the theme itself moves from the hypnotic ostinato theme and their variants and the move forward of drums and other riffs...

It finishes, in an energetic riff. About the tonality, I am not so trained by ear, but it seems apart from the ostinato some motives reappear, or make a little variation of it, even some chords of the piano.

Climbing The Mountain:

An ostinato in the guitar opens the song.

A solo in the 1:15 which is very good, it reminds me a sort of Adrian Belew wants to spice Henry Cow 1:47 Mellotron like....which sounds like Late Romanticism wants to enter into more modernistic Symphony...Influences of Shostakovich here?.

Until here, it mixes a kind of Art Bears melody like-guitar ostinato in weird rock style, Mellotron which it's between Crimson and Shostakovich...

3:30 a great sustain which is between Frith and Fripp, a kind of soaring cry...before Elaine and the Mellotron like give us a moment of peace. Maybe also a little moment of Hope. (To be honest, I am not analyzing the lyrics, i will listen them carefully another time).

4:50 The guitar sounds me very 70's, almost Mike Oldfield like... and tonal, I would say!!!



5:25 It seems there are 3 rhythms, polyrhythms...."Spanish Guitar?", Piano and wind...after that 5:50 Acoustic steel guitar, and after that the electric guitar appears.

6:36 Piano makes the ostinato of the beginning of the guitar, while the guitar and the vocal make another ostinato in unison or maybe octaves, but the same notes.

The ostinato seems that has the first bar in 9 in the guitar.

The final part in 8:10 with the Spanish guitar, the ostinatos....until the electric guitar enters and finish the theme!!.



the ostinatos in both themes seems to give a feeling of hypnoticism, mistery, obsession....some chords try to give a kind of hope in the otherwise very difficult and tension ambient of the music. Yet I cannot say it's depressive. At least not for me. The music is moving, goes there and here, takes different colours, passions, moments, breathing, the cycles goes in augmentation and diminution(rhythm) in these two pieces.

What Mike said about these two songs:

Oh, well, there's a lot I could say, but too much for here. I will say that these 2 were actually the first (Climbing) and last (Gyre) songs I wrote for the collection. I also felt like they were the 'easiest' for me to do. Consequently, I initially felt like they may not be as good as the rest. As the tracks came together, and certainly in the mixing, I changed my mind. Bob Drake and I had to do some "things" in things to Climbing, esp. in the section that goes from 3:15 to 5:26 to keep it from sounding "proggy" (to us).

About Climbing the Mountain: Actually, this little "Climbing the Mtn" counter-theme first appears at 0:46, then again at 5:27, again at 6:37 and finally at 7:45 - each time with very slight variations in the length of the last note of the phrase, as well as alterations in instrumentation.



A solo in the 1:15 which is very good, it reminds me a sort of Adrian Belew wants to spice Henry Cow



Well, you surely recognized the "Whammy" pedal?

About The Gyre:



BernMarañaRusa said:

It seems Mike did hammer on/pull off or tapping to create it, or an echo pedal for it.



Very good, yes, hammer and pull-off. Plus a little "sea-sick" chorus and delay.



BernMarañaRusa said:

Elaine enters later and she sung very little...it's mostly an instrumental track.



However, she DOES sing quite a bit of wordless vocal harmonies after that - from 2:06 through 3:22 (timings from iTunes). Those parts are very precise, and important for the "dreamy" effect in that section.



BernMarañaRusa said:

It finishes, in an energetic 7/4 riff.



Actually, if you mean the final riff, actually I wrote it as a 4/8 bar with the last note on 4.