Music Banter - View Single Post

SGR · 04-01-2023, 01:04 PM

Bicep - Apricots

Perhaps my favorite song from 2020, or at least my favorite single, was Bicep's beautiful and hypnotic trance, "Apricots". It's an ambient techno piece that just feels like a musical ritual. Incantations, powerful though they may be, are nothing without the powerful and ascending synth chords and drum breaks.

The vocal sample just repeats and repeats, no one knows what she's really saying (unless you happen to speak the language), but it doesn't matter what she's saying: it's about the feeling the listener gets while hearing her say it. There's on additional vocal sample that slowly gets introuced with a repetion of "Ay..Maka!" - just to further sell the idea of incantations.

The most incredible thing is how little it really does, and yet how powerful and intense it remains. And the feeling that the listener comes away with is probably different for everyone. Is this a cry for help? A reminiscence of times past? A call to arms? Or just an invocation of the spiritual heart of man? This very loose statement of intent and its variability is something that electronic music is finely suited for, but the genre rarely pulls it off quite as gracefully and effortlessly as it's done here - it has almost all of the ingredients in it that made Future Sound of London's "Papua New Guinea" a complete marvel to listen to.

The song will take you into its world with a warm embrace, if you're willing to let it.

If you're curious what the sampled vocals are from, here they are - obscure recordings to say the least - and the way they were used in the track once again highlights effective sampling/looping as a very unique talent in itself - the primary vocal sample from the track can be heard right at the start of this track:

The second vocal sample of the track can be heard here, about 37 seconds in:

And one last thing - I have to give credit to house DJ Sonny Fodera for putting me onto this track, as he opened one of his sets with it - a set that was performed during the Covid pandemic at the famous Printworks club in London (seeing the video with no crowds of people there is a bit jarring to say the least) - and what an opening track it is:

04-01-2023, 01:04 PM	#9 (permalink)
SGR No Ice In My Bourbon Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: /dev/null Posts: 4,326	Bicep - Apricots Perhaps my favorite song from 2020, or at least my favorite single, was Bicep's beautiful and hypnotic trance, "Apricots". It's an ambient techno piece that just feels like a musical ritual. Incantations, powerful though they may be, are nothing without the powerful and ascending synth chords and drum breaks. The vocal sample just repeats and repeats, no one knows what she's really saying (unless you happen to speak the language), but it doesn't matter what she's saying: it's about the feeling the listener gets while hearing her say it. There's on additional vocal sample that slowly gets introuced with a repetion of "Ay..Maka!" - just to further sell the idea of incantations. The most incredible thing is how little it really does, and yet how powerful and intense it remains. And the feeling that the listener comes away with is probably different for everyone. Is this a cry for help? A reminiscence of times past? A call to arms? Or just an invocation of the spiritual heart of man? This very loose statement of intent and its variability is something that electronic music is finely suited for, but the genre rarely pulls it off quite as gracefully and effortlessly as it's done here - it has almost all of the ingredients in it that made Future Sound of London's "Papua New Guinea" a complete marvel to listen to. The song will take you into its world with a warm embrace, if you're willing to let it. If you're curious what the sampled vocals are from, here they are - obscure recordings to say the least - and the way they were used in the track once again highlights effective sampling/looping as a very unique talent in itself - the primary vocal sample from the track can be heard right at the start of this track: The second vocal sample of the track can be heard here, about 37 seconds in: And one last thing - I have to give credit to house DJ Sonny Fodera for putting me onto this track, as he opened one of his sets with it - a set that was performed during the Covid pandemic at the famous Printworks club in London (seeing the video with no crowds of people there is a bit jarring to say the least) - and what an opening track it is: