So here we are. It's a moment in the history of this little site. Remember remember the 4th of November. This is the first time that this blog hosted a premiere of a song. Perhaps the first of many. Perhaps a one off. Perhaps the first in a long series of occasional first-plays and first-listens. In any case, I'm really sorry to call it a premiere because, well, why should we be using the French word? Is there not a better word that we can come up with? All it means is 'first'. So why not another language? We can rule out Russian beacuse it's первый and in the Latin alphabet that's 'pervyy'. Erste - that's German; it's fine. Első sounds nice and that's Hungarian. Or even 第一, which is Japanese and says 'daiichi'. Don't worry. All you'd need to remember is that those two characters mean 'first' and you'd be fine. I've put it in the title just now as a test. Take that, French-rooted English!
In any case, we're here to celebrate the exclusive first-play, first-everything, new song by 20-year-old Irish producer Harmful Logic (real name: Steven Clarke). He is part of the PIR▲.MD Records family, a Mexican label focusing on "new forms of hip-hop and electronic beats" - they released Harmful Logic's debut album Lost In The World, a lush sea of subby beats featuring samples from anime and PlayStation (the first one yo) games with a few collaborations with people like mus.hiba and Kryone. That album is free to download. Indeed, whilst I didn't write about that, I did write about a recent song of his that was free to download called 'Sorry'. In fact, all of his songs are free downloads so I'll just stop mentioning that. Um sorry to go on but also I thought I should mention that Harmful Logic has also participated in Piramd's series of daily free tracks, along with many others on the label.
Shall we get down to it then? Here is his most recent track, not from an upcoming EP or album, but simply a new track for you to enjoy. So please do.
Adopting an otherwordly feel from the start, sped-up samples are rinsed out and drip-dried into a steady set of vocal and instrumental samples that are chopped above an ever-glistening river of ambient synth that washes through the mind. Those samples are taken from J-pop singer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's song 'Chan Chaka Chan Chan' and used effectively to perpetuate a cyclical feeling of half-happiness in limbo. If the title of the track is anything to go by, it has the sound of a prelude to joy, a proto-euphoria where positive feelings seem to be exuding from the song's soft sounds, yet only in a thin mist.
It does have, however, an all-encompassing vibe that may owe to its luscious synths and samples, but which may be equally indebted to its unchanging gentle beat, a firm, unsyncopated hip hop style rhythm whose kicks boom quietly like gigantic bubbles in the ocean and whose unassuming snares keep time alongside miniature-sounding hi-hats. The unchanging nature of the song, its repetition, holds within it the captivating aura of dance music with a higher tempo, yet because of its own speed keeps it pretty chilled. There's also a sample at the end of some people speaking; this is from anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
There's a clear love of Japanese pop culture here, which is absolutely fine, in fact, I actively endorse it. Why limit our entertainment to our own language and culture?
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What really is surprising about this track is how it sounds like a variation on a theme of Bert Bacharach's smooth 'What The World Needs Now', its introduction fogged with those reminiscent chords, soft and lounge-leaning, a lull of resting heart-rate and horizontal chill. It is not exactly reflective of the track as a whole, nor the heart of the track, but it is a component of what this instrumental journey is all about—and that is drama. So this intro, the heartfelt touching sweetness of it, a trough of energy, soon builds with a flying formation of acrobatic distorted guitar into a peak, the concoction of it soon towering and vibrating all around you cinematic and atomic.
