schadd walrus 2: feast of the invisible cats (join biancospino walrus!)

[schadd_]

Look. I actually really think that Black Rot is a better option here. It's literally about both forgiving someone and not forgiving someone else, who just kind of happen to share a body. I also think that Gloom is the better band musically!

yes, i'm implicitly extending you the right to be the captain that goes down with the ship & double down on the gloom in the corner song. in spite of the big gap in placing, it only ends up being a 0.9 point difference. also i would like it to be noted in the ledger that i guessed the left behind song correctly and i bounced back and forth between that one and gloom on the corner

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Left Behind is more "like" most of my music, so guessing that right makes more sense. I don't like symphonic metalcore or deathcore, usually, it's just irritating. Microrant time: symphonic metal works best in more complicated contexts, IMO -- tech death, grindcore, mathcore, prog. All the genres that use it most often on the other hand, like black metal, metalcore, doom metal, power metal, most gothic metal, brutal death ... it just sounds over-done and weakens the base music. That's one of the special things about that album, and that band: they not only get away with things I find annoying from other bands, but make them work better than it would be without them.

Also, Mick Gordon was approached to produce that album for them, and he said the material they were putting out was better than he knew how to work with, so I'm not alone in thinking Gloom is really, really good. If I can convince you to give it a better shot, and I were to pick "song for schadd_ specifically" from Trinity, I'd probably go with Gatekeeper -- but as I stated in my submissions, I was aiming at catfit.

[schadd_]

noted

[Pink Ball]

Sorry schadd, I knew you didn’t like Eminem (‘cause I saw it in your page), but after “Cleaning Up My Closet” I thought it was impossible for a human being to come back from that. I had no other choice

[schadd_]

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ryyh ... ykp17t.mp4 <- i would give this like a 1.9/3

[schadd_]

krabi

by václav mergl

[Aristophanes]

Looking forward to a listen through! I'm glad you got the song I submitted, I was a little worried about this one honestly.

The next Cat, however, I anticipate will be my lowest score and the one which will be dropped at the end. I'm not known for novelty in my music in the way this cat demands.

[ceejayvinoya]

the postal service - nothing better

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5/5)
catfit: 2.3
unfamiliarity: 0.4
guess: cheeto 6
submitter: ceejay vinoya!
medals / ICs: paired vocalists +0.5
genre: post-pre-frank watkinson

8.7 + 0.5

this is a song that i've listened to a bunch, although not in the last 5+ years. i guess i really like the way it's a dialogue, a songwriting technique that feels decreasingly common. i get a big spark of joy and memory from "i feel i must interject here" [big dramatic orchestra swell but it's low in the mix] and her verse is just written very nicely. it's a little bit sitcom-y, there's never a particularly strong feeling that some genuine grievance is present, but i like that it has a sappy romantic guy asking for a second chance and the answer is just like "lol...!!! no!" and she resoundingly gets the last word. it feels very singsongy and yet also breaking with the typical logic of the sort of song it presents as.

You still taking medals for the exactly 3 minutes and 46 seconds award? It was one of the reasons I've picked this song

There are probably lots of songs that could tackle the topic of forgiveness better but this was too fun to not send.

[schadd_]

good heavens i'll get right on it

[schadd_]

tomorrow at 5pm central! 22 hours and 52 minutes from now !!!

[schadd_]

Spoiler:

reveal in a hour !

[schadd_]

cat 3: novel musicianship

Spoiler: 1st place: PJ

the number twelve looks like you - grandfather

enjoyment: 6.5 (4.7+/5)
catfit: 2.6
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: i want this to be msha so bad....
submitter: pj lol
medals / ICs: 1st place +2.0; MUSHSHAGANA award +0.4

10.1 + 2.4

here's the other Rhythmically Interesting Metal Song.

i could flippantly be like "this is jazz metal" but i will choose not to say that. this song also exploits that continuous kick drum thing, although i simply think this song does it more interestingly, using it alongside snare hits to strongly call your attention to a jagged and irregular rhythmic structure... Which is like exploiting metal for jazz purposes. i would say the rhythm of this song is just very, like, studious, similar to jjaksoe in that it just insists on getting some new sort of thing done every few moments.

another Metal Thing this song exploits is the ability to heighten and lower the energy very quickly, which it often does in this jerking-like motion, like the way a fishing pole will yank you around when you're reeling in a big one. This has been another episode of *barely-insightful analogies to a much less interesting subject*... signing off.

i like the vocalist, who also adds to the quick starting and stopping feeling with that thing where they alternate between a squawk and a screech multiple times within a phrase, and also have both styles multitracked at points. they sound like a little grunt enemy in a video game that you're like attacking but then hiding and so it keeps going aggressive but then back to normal. secret bonus episode... signing off.

i like the rhythm of this in general including other aspects not mentioned. i guess theres just a lot of stuff that happens very quickly. this is another one thats like soooo close to being grand slammable but i think that you can deal with just having the mushshagana medal

Spoiler: 2nd place: channel delly bird

fulu miziki music warriors - tikanga

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5/5)
catfit: 2.6
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: enlisting wgeurts
submitter: channel delly
medals / ICs: 2nd place +1.5, not on spotify!! + 0.1

9.6 + 1.6

i guess the construction of the song is generally pretty familiar but yeah like every individual instrument sounds first of all really good and second of all generally pretty unfamiliar to western music. i'd speculate that this isn't based on a 12 tone tuning system (cant help but notice the metallophone thingy with 7 spokes) and well a 7 tone tuning definitely isn't "novel" (like it probably predates 12 tone by a millenium or something idk) but you know

mostly what stands out is the vocalists, it feels like harmony isn't the right word to describe a lot of the phrases because it often sounds like they're interpreting the phrase differently while singing simultaneously. and of course there's that lead vocalist. when i watched the video on mute i was like "yup i know her. lol." i've heard, like, "scream vocals" plenty of course, but there's a way she belts things out that preserves the sound of vocal strain and exertion, which some folk singers kinda do but the only real point of comparison i have for that would be petrona martinez. anyway this is good.

Spoiler: 3rd: pink ball

nano stern - carnivalito del ciempéps

enjoyment: 6.2 (4.6/5)
catfit: 2.3
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: bink ball
submitter: bink paul -0.1
medals / ICs: 3rd place +1.2

9.4 + 1.2

i guess i would call this impressively multi-stylistic. the one main sticking point of brilliantness for me is how it has that slight off-kilter rhythm that i think happens sometimes in samba, like a constant heart hiccup. usually when i hear that i would expect it to be in a smaller performing group that is more able to intuitively pick up on what each other is doing, but this sounds like very elaborately composed. it's very cool

in keeping with that feeling of imbalance there's this very emphatic moment where he's like "le le le Le le le" (which i think is like a secondary dominant or something) which is like this big dramatic overextension, it feels like a big swinging structure that tips just a little too far and catches itself every time.

idk this is just like obviously very good. plenty of the instrumentation sounds like things i've heard before but there is also a lot of it.

Spoiler: 4th place: chevre

actress & the london contemporary orchestra - voodoo posse, chronic illusion

enjoyment: 5.9 (4.4+/5)
catfit: 2.5
unfamiliarity: 0.9
guess: channel delly
submitter: chevy!!!
medals / ICs: 4th place :nazar: +0.9

9.3 + 0.9

i guess the idea is that it's this fun clubby sort of song, but it's comprised of all the chaff noise an orchestra can make, the crunkling and squeaking of strings, like how they take all the gross and nearly discardable parts of meat to make hot dogs and chicken nuggets. overall i would say this strong is constructed cleverly and performed well -- it carves out a lot of moments to indulge in that string grinding sound, and i think it takes a lot of practice to do that really loudly and tightly without, like, squeaking and squawking in a way that sounds unfocused and unintentional. all the while, a drum beat i would describe as confident and charismatic guides the thing forward.

i'd contrast this with a few other high scoring entries by noting that it repeats itself a lot, which has a way of making something feel familiar and canonical in spite of having plenty of novel ideas. and i start to feel that around 2/3 of the way through, like, "yeah i get this". although around that time it does that harp pattern that lingers on a minor second interval, sort of like a fat-finger sound which is repeated very carefully and evenly. i guess i just like the song's commitment to rejecting a typical feeling of musical resolution.

in what is maybe my most cruel 0.9 unfamiliarity points yet, i'm subtracting the 0.1 because this person is a producer (who is listed as an artist) in a single song by inga copeland which has often made me think "i should check out something actress did" and by prompting me to finally do so after like 4 years, You have been punished

Spoiler: 5th (i added 0.1 point): aisa

the hermes experiment (composed by emily hall) - i am happy living simply

enjoyment: 6.4 (4.7/5)
catfit: 1.7
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: triz....
submitter: aisa
medals / ICs: like beloved +0.3

9.1 + 0.3

i guess that however you would describe the way this person is using this like classical operatic voice, it makes for a pretty new emotional output. it's hard to call any aspect of the music, like, completely novel, but idk its a very fresh and confident idea whatever it is.

today (of the reveal) i listened to it in the morning and then helped my family with moving & i found myself continually thinking Ïike a qloqk... or a calendar... (post-reveal note: i once again said like a qlock or a calendeur as i was going down to pour the rest of my smoothie)

it's very nice. i think it would be like an award winningly good paired song with cheeto's cat 5 winning song

post reveal: i wanted to give this some sort of invisible cat. lol. i have an invisible cat for that which is "je ne sais chat" when i wanna give it a cat but i don't have one for it. instead i'm giving this the beloved (by toni morrison) cat, in that you can take a kind of sad undertone to this song (me when the song literally says "i am happy") and read it into how sethe kind of loses the ability to aspire or live for her own sake. it's kind of tenuous but that's also a cat i think i would struggle to give to almost any song lol

Spoiler: tied 6th: chickadee

thao & the get down stay down - phenom

enjoyment: 5.9 (4.4+/5)
catfit: 2.1
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: aisa
submitter: chicky dee
medals / ICs:

9.0

on top of a very conventional rock foundation, with the bass doing a pedal tone for like the whole song and the drums mostly following suit, the singer carves out some sort of cool anti-harmonic thing. sorry i derive no joy from having a point of comparison but it kinda reminds me of giacinto scelsi. (WHO i dont listen to very often...!). i lied i derive some joy from it. ANYWAY

sort of hard to describe what is exactly going on here - a confidently dissonant and maybe like microtonal anthem belts out in the chorus of "i am a known phenomenon", as if directly stating that whatever the harmonic identity of this is, it's exactly the correct and intentional one. it's like a mean girl who's also goth & she's like "on wednesdays we wear all black but with navy blue eyeliner and we also shave the middle of our hair off" and you immediately realize that if you don't do that it makes you the weird one. sorry this isn't the first or the last of today's many detestable analogies

anyway another part of the scelsi comparison is that there's a very constant and engaging, like, harmonic movement of some kind but it also doesn't reach a destination. i associate this with the act of ruminating on something for a while, which i guess is just funny with the subject matter of this song.

this islike an extremely hellbookable song. she's told me about thao 69 times. i seem to have never successfully listened to this person.

Spoiler: tied 6th: fireisredsir

julia holter - turn the light on

enjoyment: 5.9 (4.4+/5)
catfit: 2.1
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: infinity 381
submitter: fire red sir
medals / ICs:

9.0

maybe you would call this "maximalist ambient", there's a lot of noises in it but they all kind of converge into an indistinct harmonic character. i say indistinct although the moments of distinction are what make this really good, there's that string-like sound that starts to peel out of the general noise about halfway through and it feels like it's like really insistent about something. and then it starts twirling around and arpeggiating and whatever.

the whole thing accompanies her voice well, there's a celestial sort of feeling of bending and warping, like she's getting pulled in by a black hole

WOW this is an album starter ok that's cool. for a while i assumed it was like, sending me this song is like just showing me the end of 2001 a space odyssey. ok that's awesome. i've had my sights on this artist a little bit for a while and i'm glad i didn't get like spoiled for this album

otherwise sort of don't know what comments to make. good song. kinda speaks for itself.

Spoiler: tied 6th: biancospino

merzbow, genesis p-orridge - kreeme horn

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5/5)
catfit: 2.2
unfamiliarity: 0.8
guess: cheeto
submitter: byanco spino
medals / ICs: laugh out loud from reading the song/artist award +1.1; transition (from swallowing the rabbit whole) +0.4

9.0 + 1.5

ok so these people just collaborated because they're both in the copypasta. right? and next you're gonna tell me that boredoms and gerogerigerige and coil are like executive producers? internet music all star match? it may happen that i've listened to something like 3 albums with merzbow in them and one from throbbing gristle (genesis p-orridge's band).

in any case i assume its mr. akita thats mostly on the production side here. it's funny that he does like this raging and misanthropic sounding noise music and is also really good at collaborating with people. the big thing that sticks out to me is that big octavey bass thing which has a sonic character that seems to want to vibrate and change at a pace that is separate from the rhythm & the notes it's being forced into, which is a sort of noise thing i've heard a few times but not often and i always like it.

i unfortunately have a bunch of experience with like heavily vocoded mysterious and evil voices, from listening to boards of canada (et al.) but GP-O definitely does something interesting with it. like no i'm sorry i don't know the kreeme horne actually.

Spoiler: 9th place: mushshagana

sculptured - taking my body apart

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5/5)
catfit: 2.0
unfamiliarity: 0.9
guess: tool
submitter: msha...!
medals / ICs:

8.9

this song as well as one other winning metal submission gets its kicks from the, well, the kick drum. in a sense. there's this thing in metal where you kind of want every moment in the song to have an injection of Hardness, which a lot of the time comes in the form of having the drummer mash on the kick drum every 16th note or whatever. sometimes you have them do that nonstop for 12 minutes and then put them barely audible in the mix; this is called "atmospheric black metal" (which i say with scorn and impudence).

this song takes that drumming tendency (and other features of the rhythmic character of metal) and exploits it to do something weird and interesting. theres some kinda bridge thing where they're like "you'll find the terms of god..." and i imagine sheet music for this having a "6/8" marking followed by "Enter The Fuck Tunnel". and of course it exits the fuck tunnel in equally interesting ways that feel suddenly very off-kilter but also structurally sound.

other than the rhythm i would say this mostly isn't breaking new ground although it is quite good. and there's something cool that happens towards the end.

taking 0.1 point off because i watched possession a few months ago. while i liked the pair of guys from the sample a lot, the correct person to put in would be isabelle adjani, which of course the metal guys aren't gonna do just like how kanye west wanted to take nicki minaj's verse out of monster. alternately you can view that 0.1 point as the way i'm penalizing the extended segment of the song that completely does away with the rhythmic intrigue of the song (in which the possession sample can be seen as a way to give me a little treat as an apology for the boringness of that part).

Spoiler: 10th place: toolenduso

maps and atlases - every place is a house

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5/5)
catfit: 1.7
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: PJ
submitter: toolz
medals / ICs:

8.7

the guy kinda sounds like maroon 5. although there's a funny sound of the vocal harmonies he does because his voice kinda doesn't, like, blend with itself. But i mean that in a good way.

yeah there is a lot of cool rhythmic stuff and like goofy fast mashing on the guitar. It is cool. it doesnt really make the feeling that anything particularly new is happening in the song but it's very neat. i like how there's often like slight misalignments in the timing of a lot of guitar notes, it feels like the pattern-breaking movements of animals in a pond. this is a good song. great example of the many submissions where it's like fairly-cool-musicianship but mostly just a cool song. imean the musicianship is cool too. it also has the kick drum mashing intrigue of a couple other songs but with that particular technique it doesn't make a lot of, like, rhythmic intrigue. idk with the whole feeling of the song it feels hard to justify a middling catfit but if i zoom in on any moment it's kinda just like "yeah that sounds like rhythm"

Spoiler: 11th place: stinkycheesedan

code orange - swallowing the rabbit whole

enjoyment: 5.8 (4.4/5)
catfit: 1.8
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: biancospino
submitter: stinky cheese dan baby!
medals / ICs: transition (into kreme horn) +0.4

8.6 + 0.4

there's a great buildup in the first 40 seconds that like very slightly doesnt deliver.

the particularly interesting things in this are that goofy, like, curved delivery of the vocals at times, the sporadic shredding and squeaking sound of the guitar, that thing where it just stops for a second in the middle (although i can do that by accidentally covering my bluetooth earbuds for a second), occasional spontaneous and jagged rhythms, and overall a lot of extra production work and layering and stuff, etc

this one feels like it also has a large risk of being mushshagana which is like compelling me to give it a fair shake. Lol. i don't think the general construction of the song or the particular emotions of it are earth shatteringly new but there's plenty of cool material

Spoiler: tied 12th place: t3

system of a down - psycho

enjoyment: 6.0 (4.5/5)
catfit: 2.0
unfamiliarity: 0.5
guess: t3
submitter: yex -0.1
medals / ICs: exactly 3 minutes and 46 seconds award -0.6

8.4 - 0.6

ok so... shortly after i opened the walrus thread i posted:
> if somebody submitted system of a down shimmy to thw novel musicianship cat i woyld assume it was about the vocals and give it $100 points
in the low effort posting thread. the submitter seems to have missed and sent the one two tracks later in the album. my current projection is that this is a complete coincidence as i am guessing t3 who famously doesnt have speakeasy access.

in any case, this song also serves to showcase the way serj tankian, like, spends all of each song trying to entertain you with a bunch of different approaches. it's sort of like if a proverbial morning talk radio host did metal vocals. except the thing about it is that he like barely seems to be a metal vocalist in particular a lot of the time he's just this guy thats saying a lot of stuff in funny voices. the central phrase "psycho groupie cocaine crazy" blurs the line between a coherent clause ("from the time you were a psycho groupie [who was] cocaine crazy") and some kinda jump rope rhyme for grownups.

majiffy is probably gonna link a nine minute song that runs counter to this claim but i just feel like his vocals are very singular, not relying on any particular trick to be engaging for the whole unfortunate 3 minute and 46 second runtime. sorry jiffy i'm not gonna listen to the song you will have linked at least until the end of the walrus bc i already have so much homework.

everything other than the vocals is like 100% standard fare metal from the metal store

Spoiler: tied 12th: hellbooks

bela - jjaksoe

enjoyment: 5.8 (4.4/5)
catfit: 1.9
unfamiliarity: 0.8
guess: hellbooks
submitter: yeag -0.1
medals / ICs:

8.4

i have like no memory of this song but apparently listened to it earlier in the year from a big list of hellbooks songs so uh that's something

i guess i've listened to like a lot of music thats centered on you know Computer Stuff. and Synths. however, when you are making music like that there is an eternal temptation to do a bunch of copy pasting, asking your Computer to spit out a bit more of the same to make the good part last longer or whatever. and that impulse seems to be almost completely missing here, it's like they're going to the trouble of coming up with a new slightly different but novel rhythmic idea every 10 seconds. and the same sort of goes for the general coloration of the synth stuff. And i like the spaciousness of the beginning segment

Spoiler: tied 12th: invisibilty

renaissance sound - derek's journey

enjoyment: 5.9 (4.4+/5)
catfit: 1.5
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess:
submitter: invisibility (unguessed)
medals / ICs: not on spotify +0.1, paired vocalists +0.4

8.4 + 0.5

there's a slightly interesting suite of instruments, the vocalists pair with each other oddly but effectively, the drummer is good and cool, but as a whole idk the song is just kinda normal. i like the repeating bass lick but like repeating bass licks are sooooo normal songcore. and even a repeating bass lick that is friends with a vibraphone pattern, is still normalcore for the general jazz-inspired oeuvre, even if it is very good and cool. this song is cool

i did the mushshagana copy paste error with this one too. so invisibility is let on through

Spoiler: 15th: aristophanes

chance the rapper - same drugs

enjoyment: 6.2 (4.6/5)
catfit: 1.4
unfamiliarity: 0.6
guess: chickadee
submitter: arstophanes!!!
medals / ICs: honest songwriting +0.8

8.2 + 0.8

chance's voice is so cute. one time i was listening to it and there was a rabbit that ran in front of me and i thought "chance the rapper is like that rabbit." honestly i'm giving like 0.1 catfit point for that or maybe more

i would say this song is a hard sell for this cat in that soul music is idk like more than a century old or something. it's like a historical category. but this song racks up a lot of neat production stuff and otherwise cool songwriting ideas. i like how he does the "we dont do the we dont do the same drugs" thing that's like the chopped and screwed style being reified into an intentional way that he sings (i think, maybe its post production). i like the errant drum and string samples that kinda stick out as old and goofy. i like the round singing

i listened to this album like 4 years ago or more and i vaguely remembered this song. it's very good

Spoiler: 16th place: wogurts

black midi - sugar/tzu

enjoyment: 5.7 (4.3+/5)
catfit: 1.4
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: gonna kinda spuriously recruit fireisredsir for this
submitter: wogurt!
medals / ICs:

8.1

i should have known someone would submit black country new road. Sorry i mean king gizzard lizard wizard. I mean swans I mean

have to admit to like automatically rolling my eyes at this band in spite of never having listened to it. i also don't really like the vocalist and think that they're not saying anything interesting. but it's hard not to be swept along for the rest of the fun

one big source of catfit points is that weird ass guitar arpeggio thing which reminds me of the attached tumblr post

Spoiler: 17th place: skygazer

mark applebaum - 3 unlikely corporate sponsorships: no.1, nestle

enjoyment: 5.3 (4.1+/5)
catfit: 1.7
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: chev
submitter: skygazer...!!!!
medals / ICs:

8.0

the second time i listened to it i literally specifically remembered half of a fig newton (the other half of a fig newton) and yet i still laughed at it. yes i suppose this has to be acknowledged as dissimilar to what i usually listen to (except for like steve reich). but the trouble is that i don't see this as very musically skilled, although it did grow on me as such.

a lot of it is kind of rhythmically uncreative, with the shining exceptions in how he enunciates the trailing consonants in some words like "dip", so that it sounds like "di di :bubbles: :bubbles:." i guess the general enunciation is really good, like this is generally better-than-audiobook grade speaking. and it just sounds like it was produced with a lot of care, like there's left-ear and right-ear panning and stuff.

Spoiler: tied 18th place: infinity

a million dead birds laughing - xen

enjoyment: 5.6 (4.3/5)
catfit: 1.1
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: stinkycheese dan ...?
submitter: infiny was the extra metal submitter ok lol cool
medals / ICs:

7.7

there was an F ton of metal songs that got sent this time and this one really struggles to stand out i guess. there's a few things i talk about with the higher scoring songs about the way they leverage the general rhythmic interestingness of metal, and i think this song kinda does that but i also think that i'm like primed to pay attention to that because the other songs uhh do it better. i'd say this song has a lot of the bonus bits of flair that i always like to hear in metal, especially in the guitar and drums, but idk as a whole it doesn't blow me away or whatever. there's an interesting sorta-microtonal thing in that chorus "masters keep falling eclipse the wooooorld".

Spoiler: tied 18th place: deathrowkitty

p.d.q. back - prelude to einstein on the fritz

enjoyment: 5.7 (4.3+/5)
catfit: 1.1
unfamiliarity: 0.9
guess: skygazeur
submitter: ohhhh drk lol
medals / ICs:

7.7

this got a few laughs out of me. the silvagunner philharmonic orchestra plays phillip glass. generally my favorite part is the circus sounds in the middle. this one is somber so it's alright to cry.

the thing is that i've listened to a you know medium amount of phillip glass. most of the novel musicianship goodies come from the way the arrangement and stuff interrogates the Phillip Glass Emotion, moments like the ending of the three stooges theme where the big last three notes triumphantly fade back onto the repeating string pattern. and several other things that are like simple musical jokes that have the full semblance of being "played straight".

if this is in fact gazer i admire the fact that they presumably have a big pool of like university art music to draw from and just forsook all of it in favor of this thing which is mostly just funny

Spoiler: 20th place: ceejayvinoya

wintergatan - marble machine

enjoyment: 5.5 (4.2+/5)
catfit: 0.9
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: arphistopheleps
submitter: ceejayvinoya !
medals / ICs: songs my keys would like :keys: +0.7

7.4 + 0.7

aristophanes is like the patron saint of this genre of "songs that are actually mostly a cool video"

i'd say the whole marble situation has only incidental effects on the musicality of the song, it's sort of like an animusic situation where it's set up to make just like a regular sounding song that mostly hides the marbleness from the output sound. before i watched the video on mute i figured that the bass and guitar were just like separate and i thought the actual setup was cool.

really the thing that motivates the points is the actual sound of the marbles rattling around. there's that moment in the middle which is like just the metallophone and the cranking and rattling sounds which actually has a little bit of bonus emotionality.

i think that my keys would appreciate the metallic clattering sounds, i imagine its like folk music for them

Spoiler: tied 21st place: cheetory6

electronicos fantasticos - 電磁祭囃子 in neo tokyo

enjoyment: 5.2 (4.1/5)
catfit: 1.0
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: ceejayvinoya
submitter: cheetory 6 ..! oh how the champions fall
medals / ICs:

7.2

one of two songs where it seems like there's some bizarre instrument situation they have that seems cool visually at least but i guess i don't feel like there's some particularly brilliant skill being shown off, or even that the little TV screen thingys make for novel music techniques in spite of the apparent weirdness and coolness. if i treat this just as a song and not like a visual demo, it's kind of straightforward as to how it's written and constructed although there's some cool pitch stuff and overall wiggidy wobbliness.

Spoiler: tied 21nd place: isis

cusco - flying condor

enjoyment: 5.6 (4.3/5)
catfit: 0.7
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: isis
submitter: isis -.1
medals / ICs:

7.2

ehm, a lot of the stuff here seems to be pretty straightforward unfortunately. like it sounds like it's a bunch of the instruments in a household synth keyboard. i like it though. i would say it has like a lot of the early-pop-synth style charm of kate bush's music even though it's from 1991 interestingly. i think i've described a "stinky kate bush bass" for another submission and this definitely has that. it could be a very nice theme song for a pbs documentary about science.

i found out by accident that all of the youtube comments seem to be korean. i guess theres nothing to make of that really.

Spoiler: 23rd place: tris

pierre-laurent aimard (composed by györgy ligeti) - musica ricerata, no. 1 sostenuto

enjoyment: 4.5 (3.7+/5)
catfit: 0.4
unfamiliarity: 1.0
guess: death row kitty
submitter: tris...! another person who could do another fuck by shit
medals / ICs:

5.9

assuming this is death row kitty in which case come onnnn girl!!! lol!!!! i was hoping you'd send me like brian ferneyhough or atleast another fuck by shitstainkovich. But no. you sent me this triple A shit... minor league material... ok sorry i am being very cruel again. (unless this is isnt drk in which case, i am being very cruel). it even has some of the energy of shostakovich piano trio no. 2 mvmt 4. But none of the freakin notes!!!

maybe there's an angle here of "you broke composition down to its barest essentials!" but like european djs the world over have already beaten ligeti to the punch on this sort of thing. and by that i mean european djs, europe over, did the thing ligeti did here 40 years later or whatever. and if the only distinguishing factor is like the expression and articulation and whatever of the notes, idk that is stuff that i've also heard before. so this is just not landing in this cat very well unfortunately. the ending is cool.

i'm like so certain i've listened to some album performance of ligeti and yet all i can find specifically is the 2001 a space odyssey soundtrack. Which i watched a couple weeks after opening the walrus thread so it doesnt count.

Spoiler: 24th place: majifskies

grateful dead - morning dew (winterland 10/18/74)

enjoyment: 3.9 (4.8)
catfit: 0.4
unfamiliarity: 0.8
guess: majjiffies
submitter: majiffy -0.1
medals / ICs:

5.0

i've done my time in the grateful dead mines. my dad played them in the car all the time and i listened to like 3 or 4 of their albums on my own believe it or not. they're good musicians sure but like, there's a bunch of people that sound like them and they sound like a bunch of people. maybe the big innovation in this song is how they took like 4 minutes worth of song tops and dwelled on it for 13:21. but it doesn't sound like the minimalist-style picking apart the salience of a certain musical bit, it kinda just sounds like self-assuredness to me. oh no i know a dirty word.

another thing is that like the on-draggingness of it makes me less attuned to whatever individual pieces of musicianship happen, especially in that big breakdown or whatever at the end where i assume they're all trying really hard to impress me and i'm just going like "yup that all sounds like instrumence to me"

Spoiler: approximate listening order

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be37-T72DNk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOSDV0OeCMQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsHOnGF6_8Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpL0J5l5qEE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhetkYJlOtc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Sc9N_2YHI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bil1hxOxyyQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzbg95-UQ3k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGwQZrDNLO8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvvUs0zpsFY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D3TrpQ_nFo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIs3jechQ_E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1ZAK-6wlNY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctn14oYz0qA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4fbfqULzPY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i7L_HcxiTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2o-AmKLh_E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR5wc5aa1JA but only first song until 1:39
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7hm3Z57M6k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao5bDX_uKqE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpKQOvlDr-s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0VYsiMtrNE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ByC3QcWy4

[schadd_]

gunna put this in a separate post because i think it makes it harder to read the rest of the spoiler= tags on mobile

[schadd_]

ONE INVISIBLE CAT HAS CHOSEN TO REVEAL ITSELF THIS DAY!

like beloved (by toni morrison)

:

0.3 pts

/ 0.6 pts / 1.0 pts
this is my favorite book. i kind of threw this in as like a sort of thing that i would notice and like about a song, although i think that it's really unlikely that i award it another time. it's a book that doesn't really like being compared to things. as i stated in aisa's entry i kind of forced it with that song because i wanted to give it something although i think the emotional connection is kind of there.

[schadd_]

like a clock... or a hamburger...

[schadd_]

tentatively, i'll plan to reveal cat 7 (drums) at 2pm a week from today, which would be in (expired on 2023-08-26 14:00:00)

last walrus i did one of the categories (maybe 6?) at like 6 in the morning which was theoretically in support of the people in a UTC++ time zone, of which there were two in the game but neither of whom showed up although cheery dog did. i dont know if we have anybody in australia or somewhere temporally nearby but if you would like to have the reveal instead happen at 11am UTC please let me know. this is something i'd do with like exactly one vote in favor

[Aisa]

i once again said like a qlock or a calendeur

We should all endeavour to say "like a qlock or a calendeur" more often in our lives tbh

[Pink Ball]

Saturdays are inherently difficult for me, but I’ll try to be part of the live reveals at least once.

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I'm both surprised and not surprised about the entry you guessed was me, because on one hand: Yeah, That Tracks, and on the other, I am not a fan. (I find TN12LLY dull, personally, though I understand why people like them.)

For the record, I'm surprised you didn't pick out how much of the Sculptured song was indebted to 90s Christian devotional, 50s lounge, etc. It's approaching metal from a DEEPLY unusual angle, which is why I ended up picking it.

You should make sure you didn't fuck up all of Invisibility's stuff with my stuff. Yes, there's only one other I switched over, but now is the time to make sure you didn't flub that one too.

I am curious what you thought about Sarpanitum, since you clearly listened to it too given the flub, but I also think it's a way more boring thing, just power metal by way of technical deathgrind -- which is really weird to ME, but probably does nothing for most people.

[Isis]

Saturdays are inherently difficult for me, but I’ll try to be part of the live reveals at least once.

[schadd_]

cat 7 (drums) reveals tomorrow at 2pm central time. i started making discord event thingys for them which have a time zone-neutral timestamp.

after that i'll take another extra week of intermission (wow i already did this twice... imbarrassing...) and then plan to close out with cat 2 and 8 and 1 WITHOUT more delay. i'll plan to do cat 8 on a sunday which would end up being the 17th of september, and that would want to be earlier in the day so as not to be too punishing for europeans that are staying up for it.

[schadd_]

You should make sure you didn't fuck up all of Invisibility's stuff with my stuff. Yes, there's only one other I switched over, but now is the time to make sure you didn't flub that one too.

I am curious what you thought about Sarpanitum, since you clearly listened to it too given the flub, but I also think it's a way more boring thing, just power metal by way of technical deathgrind -- which is really weird to ME, but probably does nothing for most people.

the invisibility thing is sorted (the other one for which it was a problem was cat 6 which i did already) although i screwed up a couple things in this cat separately from that LOL

i only listened to the sarpanitum song once and then mostly purged it from my memory because i already have so much song listening tasks. i remember finding out it was the overwritten song and thinking "whichever of these other metal songs is actually the mushshagana song is probably better". there was something about the noise profile i thought was cool

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Very fair. Honestly, it's mostly a curiosity, where Sculptured is legitimately odd.

[schadd_]

Spoiler:

reveal in a hour! quick glossary because i use this term a lot, "fuck tunnel" is this term i Invented in mushshagana's entry last week which refers to metal drumming based on like a constant fast plodding of the kick drum

another thing i'll note is that like 1.0 catfit would be a baseline of something like "good drums" just because it turns out that there were some um pretty good drumming songs i got

[Aristophanes]

This should be very interesting...and very metal. My ears are prepping for the barrage.