moving in Low Motion
June 5th, 2008It’s been a long time since I listened to one track on repeat over and over and over again. I think the first time was in college, pulling an all-nighter to finish a report for a speech I had to give in History 102, taking Vivarin (first and last time) and listening to David Bowie’s "Heroes" (the full version) over and over and over and over and over. What a night. Needless to say, my speech was really really weird.
All the speeches given up to that point had been really dry, and since the grade was half from the professor, and half from student evaluations, I figured I should make my speech kind of funny, you know? So I wrote in all these "jokes". Let me be the first to tell you that jokes written in the middle of an all-nighter on Vivarin are not going to be funny. At best they will be odd. So I gave my speech, red-eyed and fried, and babbling incoherently about how the German soldiers of World War One wore funny hats. I can remember thinking it was strange that no-one was laughing at the funny bits. My friend PatH who was in the class later told me that it wasn’t making any sense.
Sure enough, when I had slept and re-read my speech, it was a mess.
Lately, I’ve been listening to "The Low Murderer is Out at Night" on repeat 1 and it’s been great. The song is kind of a mini-suite, going through several movements, each of which adds on the previous one.
Initially it’s a bit like Air, with an acoustic guitar groove and bubbling electronics. Around 2 minutes in, a distorted guitar and funkier beat get added. At the 3 minute mark a sweet Floyd-esque solo comes sweeping in and I feel the presence of JWilmeth is hanging out with me. So good. I once read this description of a track by Country Joe and the Fish and it said something like "at the 2 minute mark, suddenly the walls begin to melt." That’s how it feels, the wall begin to melt. Then the vocal sample, and the dirrrty synth at 5:15 and we’re in it deep, you know?
Loving it.
(Low Motion Disco – The Low Murderer Is Out At Night)
[audio:Low_Motion.mp3]
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I remember the university gave us Vivarin packets as part of our “Welcome to College!” freshman care packages.
Frankly I’d like a transcript of the ‘Germans with funny hats’ speech.
That really is lavishing both welcome and care on freshmen isn’t it? “Here, get stimmed!”
Also, I wish I still had the paper. I have a vivid memory of deleting all my old college papers at one point (probably to save disk space or something), thinking “I’ll never care about these again!!” It would be fun to read them again though, wouldn’t it? Hard to tell. Maybe depressing.
If the a paper existed I would love to read it, although it may be difficult containing Odin Von Tyson’s rage at the desription of the “funny hats”
I’ve never listened to a track more then once back to back, but damn this is good, might have to go in for another taste
Dope ass track. That will be appearing on the next mix. Thanks for that.
And I agree with Odin, I have listened to it 3 times in a row in the office. Kanner just walked in and asked what I was listening to and I think I just heard it start over in his room too.
Yeahhhhh JW, I figure out of all of us you’re the most primed to be able to deal with a track that’s 7 minutes long…so glad you guys are feeling the funk. It sounds like summer, makes me feel like I’m driving through a sunny day of green fields, maybe on my way to a park…
and Odin shouldn’t worry, like I said above, that paper is long deleted…
7 minutes is a radio friendly track for me.