Emotional Experience: Skymind, Skymind, Taal
This is gonna be the first in a ~very~ occasional series of detailed descriptions of my thoughts and emotional states as I listen to a piece of music. They will be written in the form of a brief description of the song, a YouTube link to it, followed by timestamp comments under a cut to be read as the song is listened to, followed by any other commentary I feel like adding.
This time I will be breaking down my experience of the song Skymind, from the album Skymind, by the French Progressive Rock band Taal. Listen and follow along if you enjoy apocalyptic instrumentals and ominous chants!
https://youtu.be/LIEGKrrBjmc
0:05 - Nice, slow ominous intro…
0:11 - Oh! Intro ~montage~, that’s cool.
0:14 - Circus?
0:18 - Market? Wish I could understand the snippets of French. Also, would the real song please stand up? I love being teased, but I think a whole song of this would get tiring after a couple minutes. :/
0:21 - Punk rebelliousness? Oh wait! The way these snippets have similar tones, tempos, and melodies despite radically different stylings is amazing! A smorgasbord of ominous apprehension.
0:28 - Wait, this is different.
0:35 - Holy shit! I’ve never mistaken a cello for an airplane before!
0:45 - Okay, we’re in the *song* part of the song now. Some beats have been laid. Cello is mournful. The light background of radio feedback squeaks and hisses are giving me a strong WWII era vibe rn, but there’s this one instrument making a pew noise that makes me think it’s more futuristic than that.
0:58 - Oh I ~adore~ the dissonance with which the second cello enters! Such a regretfully ominous slow burn they’ve got going!
1:12 - Tapping the cymbals to anticipate the revelation...A wild electric guitar appears! Something screams far above.
1:17 - YES! Good riff. The screaming was a missile launcher, the riffs the aftermath.
1: 24 - The missile lands with a low rumble in the distance and the battle is on. The cellos buzz with dread.
1:54 - The snare taps and short electric guitar bursts make me feel like I’m observing this battle from afar. War is on this mind in the sky. Each squeal of the guitar portends an escalation.
1:58 - The low rumbling of destruction. Are those flutes in the background taking up the melody?
2:18 - Tempo increasing. This is making me *really, really* anxious!
2:25 - The subtle shrieking as a bomb falls within the cacophony. Shit’s about to go down.
2:37 - Everything is destruction.
2:48 - Now the explosions give way to whispered words, a summoning chant, faint and faltering.
3:02 - The chanting is rhythmic, increasing in intensity. I ~really~ wish I could make out these words. What existential terror are we summoning! What are its attributes?!?
3:16 - Skymind...an autonomous drone? A spy plane? A satellite?
3:26 - The reveal feels anticlimactic. Really frustrated I couldn’t make out the words.
3:34 - I feel like the strings have been cut, the power cut off to something in motion.
3:43 - What do you portend, mischievous piano?
4:07 - OH! The skymind is put in a box, works its way out and to the internet and begins rebuilding itself.
4:24 - The chant is more patient, less under duress. Melodious flutes, with the cello returning ominously to the background. SOOOOO deliciously subtle! The skymind bides its time and I have goosebumps.
4:30 - The electric guitar returns, rumbling with power. I am shaking with anxiety now.
4:41 - “...wings, night, glide…” is all I’ve made out. More evidence the skymind is an AI war drone.
4:48 - That riff felt like the roar of rocket engines in a liftoff. The chant is a countdown to destruction. I am afraid.
5:04 - I just heard the words head and kill. The emotionless nature of the chant makes me think these are the processes the drone is going through in a loop. Endless, remorseless. Maybe the transition before was a shutdown, refueling, update, and change of target.
5:28 - HERE IT COMES!
5:4o - The riff leading up to and between the 2 chants of Skymind is a strafing run of destruction, it is such a satisfying relief from that buildup and am really disturbed.
5:52 - The keyboard plays an update to the next target? Is this a robot orgasm? Job well done?
5:58 - Oh, that transition was abrupt and unexpected! I feel like I am being taunted for feeling satisfaction at the climax, the folly of humanity, and now everything is chaos.
6:18 - Cities fall. Hope is lost.
6:37 - Rally to the flute! There may be hope yet!
6:43 - The strings hum of resistance being plotted amidst the chaotic destruction.
7:00 - The strings turn ominous again! Where is this going?
7:14 - I am so anxious. I feel like everyone is fleeing.
7:19 - And the drums signal the last of humanity is being gunned down.
7:21 - The riffs of POWER assured, return. All is lost.
7:28 - THAT SQUEAL JUST RAN UP AND DOWN MY SPINE! HOly fuck!
7:33 - WOW the resonant chords on those guitars are freaking me out. So much power and confidence!
7:38 - More rat-tat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat-tat, shots fired.
7:44 - Oh, that squeal feels so good!
7:47 - And again! Do I hear the sound of an organ in those chords? Neat!
7:58 - Definitely an organ. Lots of dread.
8:26 - Okay, I get the reign of terror is endless. We can move on.
8:38 - Oh, thank goodness! Something new. A little keyboard in the background.
8:50 - I’m hearing radio static again. We must be nearing the end.
8:57 - was that an ambulance siren?
9:07 - That prismatic keyboard chaos is almost ~exactly~ what plays during most of the establishing shots of the deathist dystopia in the movie Logan’s Run. That is so delightfully appropriate for this new world order under the Skymind!
9:20 - I am 80% percent certain that is the exact same sound as in Logan’s Run. I. AM. LOVING. THIS.
9:46 - and now the universe is tiled in computronium and the last radio signals of resistance give way to static.
Deliciously horrifying!
