Hubris, by Oren Ambarchi
Hubris is such an upfront album, with its stark contrast between the droning, rhythmic punctuations of the opener, and the aggressive, booming and shrill closer, with the middle track connecting the two loosely in a brief rhythmic intermission–this tells us what we need to know about hubris, which seems to be the theme of the album. The eyes peeking in at you from the cover, what do they see?
Hubris pt. 1 starts off simple enough, a modulated guitar tone in a loop, bass comes in soon after and the guitar picks up, but what happens is subtle and I can’t help but enjoy it, a plucky series of scalework notes starts playing over another modulated guitar tone, looped again, bass intensifies, two and a half minutes into the song and the guitar hasn’t really repeated in either tracks–the plucking or the droning, bass is intensifying in its melodic structure, gradually things are forming into quite a moving pace, and then another drone starts, that treble-heavy, high-attack picking still going, never playing the same thing twice–as far as I can tell, but I draw all this out because the difference between two minutes into the song and four needs to be heard or pointed out to really understand the purpose of this song.
Slowly the rhythmic elements build and build into a hypnotic experience, patiently they layer themselves into what becomes quite a wall of sound, synth comes in to give form to the structure, and to add, and thus change, and lead into, the “drop” of the beat. This synth line changes a 2/4 time (subdivided up) overlaid with a 3/4, into a 4/4 time on top of a 3/4, the bass (or synth?) coming in and accenting this structure in a humming, punctuated rhythm. The beat, yes the beat, it takes that upbeat 2/4, and slows it down to a wonderful pace at 4/4. All the while the song has been building, rhythmically changing ever-so-slightly, leading up to the finale, but instead of an explosion, instead of the beat being heavy and big, it fits snugly into the mix, tapping into the rhythm and accenting it, highlighting it with the ghost notes and “finger snap” snare, and giving it a body it otherwise wouldn’t have if the song hadn’t been so slowly building, and that’s exactly what I think this music is trying to highlight…
Hubris pt. 3 is the thematic opposite of Hubris pt. 1, with its immediately heavy and full guitar-riff and in-your-face drums, high-pitched noise-drones and loops, its ultimate implosion in structure, it’s structurally completely different, quite literally opposite, and this contrast is really the highlight of the album for me, and this contrast really serves to highlight what the artists are trying to say. Maybe it’s even a tragedy, the story, if there is one…