I was going to write about Taylor Swift, but then I realised to my horror that she doesn’t really have any good songs (or at least I haven't found one yet), just a handful of good hooks, and so I impulsively decided to indulge my autistic desire to continue to write even more about the most autistic of bands, Cardiacs, banging this post out before, after, and even during (shh!) work yesterday. I might return to Ms Swift and other mainstream pop later... I've finished my teaching course and now find myself at something of a loose end, staying away from home without any musical instruments to hand...
What’s the overlap between Panda Bear fans and Cardiacs fans? My cynical suspicion is that it’s mostly young, always-online nerds, detached from any particular local or cultural scene, who omnivorously devour music regardless of its context, preferably if it’s been highly rated on websites by other nerds. That more or less describes me during a dark time of my life in which Animal Collective was a soothing presence (though that wasn’t why it was dark!)... The two projects are both psychedelic pop — I even compared Cardiacs to AnCo in my last post — but perhaps they’re examples of two different approaches to the loosely defined genre. The psychedelia of Panda Bear feels more stoned, or “vibey” in the parlance of our times: grooves, loops, lapping waves of sound, all soaked in reverb and delay, creating a suspension through internal cyclical motion. Cardiacs, on the other hand, are absolutely wired, pinging from one musical idea, rhythmic pattern, or harmonic centre to the next with wild abandon; theirs is often a “groundless” psychedelia in which reality tilts sideways or turns upside down. If Panda Bear lets you admire the beautiful swirling patterns while lying on the rug, Cardiacs pulls the rug right out from underneath you.
All that said, you can imagine my delighted surprise when, returning to Tomboy, I realised that the song “Friendship Bracelet” was kind of a Cardiacs song. I say “kind of” because the lyrics and rendition are totally un-Cardiacs, but the harmonic movement is bizarrely similar in certain ways. I’d specifically like to compare the song to “Dirty Boy”, often considered the band’s greatest song, for their respective uses of upward chromatic modulations.
The first half of “Friendship Bracelet” has a long, meandering chord progression which ends a semitone higher than where it started, climbing up this way three times. Let’s take the first instance of the chord sequence: E D E D C G F C G F B♭ A♭ G F E♭ C F. Already we can see he’s only using major triads, which is very Cardiacs. E is established as the tonal centre and perceived I chord. It pivots to D, felt as a ♭VII, and back, before descending even lower to C (♭VI). At this point of relative harmonic instability, there’s a IV-I gesture in the movement from C to G; the G moves downwards to F (a new ♭VII, making the movement similar to the first in the sequence), and G remains the harmonic locus. Even when another modulation is threatened when F moves to B♭ in a V-I gesture and then the I-♭VII gesture is repeated with B♭-A♭, the music returns to G again. The I-♭VII-♭VI gesture is repeated (G F E♭) before moving to C (what would be the IV) via a chromatic mediant relationship (let's call them CMRs from now on); at this point, we might expect a return to G, but instead, there’s a V-I gesture that finally brings us to F at [0:44], which is secured as the new tonal centre by the length it’s held. I should explain, just for clarity, that I’m speaking in terms of harmonic “gestures” because the perceived tonic shifts about so often that it’s rarely (if ever) firmly established.
The ending of the fourth iteration of this sequence at [2:20] extends the I-♭VII-♭VI descent further, bringing us back to E again via three drops of a tone: B♭ A♭ G♭ E. At this point, a new chord sequence is introduced which also repeats four times, though always returning to E: E D F♯m A C Bm Am C G F (then back to E). We can split this chord sequence into two, in which the first half is in E major and the second is in G major. E D F♯m A feels like I-♭VII-ii-IV (though it could alternatively be interpreted as V-IV-vi-I in A major), but then there’s an unexpected shift from A to C via another CMR; C Bm Am C G F now feels like IV iii ii IV I ♭VII, and then the F chord functions as ♭II (or ♭VI in A major) when slipping back to E for the beginning of the next cycle. At the very end, the F chord doesn’t return to E, and is instead prolonged with Noah providing a Lydian harmonic flavour with his repeated vocal melody, from [4:10] onwards. All of this harmonic adventurousness is quite uncharacteristic for Noah, who was previously content with writing songs using just one or two chords.
It’s worth noting how these harmonic decisions complement the song’s lyrics, and I presume this was intentional on Panda Bear’s part. The first half describes how Noah has drifted “further and further and further and even further” from his loved ones, a fear of his which “happened, slowly happened, slowly happened” without him noticing until it was too late. This is reflected in the way the chord sequence moves further away from its origin point, each long sequence just a semitone higher than the last, but almost imperceptibly due to its losing the listener in the harmonic weeds through so many harmonic twists and turns. The second half’s refrain of “Cannot be destroyed with a friend's ring at the side / Don't break ties that hold them round the ring” affirms Noah’s desire to keep his friends close forever, and so it’s suitable that the new chord sequence should always return to E despite digressions to G. The ending on F-lydian, however, threatens to frustrate this desire, as Noah repeats the mantra “Don’t break”.
I used to not like this song very much, on account of its unintuitive structure and lack of sonic variety, but I've definitely come to appreciate it a lot more in writing this post. It may not have the same emotional immediacy of "Last Night at the Jetty", which is just a fantastic pop song full of simple but beautiful musical ideas, or "Benfica", which swirls blissfully like Blanck Mass' first album (coincidentally released in the same year), but it's certainly much more than a mere curiosity in Panda Bear's discography.
Like I said, “Dirty Boy” is often considered one of Cardiacs’ greatest songs; it’s certainly their most iconic prog epic. Despite being relatively sedate in its tempo by the band’s standards, its heaviness and feeling of constant upward striving still make it relentlessly intense. The chorus (especially the second one, which modulates seven times) ratchets up the intensity with its upward chromatic modulation. The first iteration goes like this: B A D A F A♭ Gm, followed by C at the beginning of the next iteration. B is established as the first tonic after the previous verse ends on F#, but then we have a ♭VII that functions like a new V, just like in “Friendship Bracelet”. D is the new tonic, pivoting back to its dominant A. We then have two chord changes via CMRs, first down to F, and from there up to A♭; this is followed by a v-I gesture that establishes the new tonic of C at the beginning of the next iteration, retroactively making the F A♭ G C sequence feel like IV-♭VI-v-I.
Though the similarities are — at least to me — significant between how the chord sequences are constructced, there are two things that really differentiate their emotional effect. The first is the length of each sequence: Panda Bear’s lasts over 30 seconds and has 16 chord changes (roughly one every 2 seconds), while Cardiacs’ lasts just 10 seconds and has just 7 (roughly one every 1.5 seconds); this means the modulation rate of the latter is palpably faster. The second is the build in intensity. While Panda Bear does introduce some extra layers of percussion, low end, and vocal harmonies during the first section of “Friendship Bracelet”, the general texture remains fairly consistent, and his vocals float effortlessly even after his melody is transposed up a minor third. The second chorus of “Dirty Boy”, on the other hand, builds to a fever pitch, with Tim and co. audibly straining to reach their high notes even before they reach the full perfect fifth’s upward transposition. Panda Bear is drifting away, while Cardiacs are stretching heavenward.
I can’t write a post about “Dirty Boy” without mentioning its final section, which is sublime in the fullest, most 19th-century Romantic sense of the word. During the unpredictable ramble that follows the second chorus, it appears the band has almost found their way to salvation at [5:50] when they sing a high G♯ and hold it as the instruments drop out, only to rejoin on a triumphant E chord, followed by an A (creating an Amaj7 with the held G♯). This resolves to F via a CMR, which pivots back and forth with D (another CMR). The preparation for the final section at [6:21] goes Bm B♭ F D♭ (every chord change enabled by each successive triad sharing just one note with the previous one) with some bright Lydian-flavour melodies over the top — “Hold his mouth and stop him breathing / OVER AND…” — and then the triumphant E chord returns with that soaring G♯ sung on an open vowel. What happens next is absolutely remarkable: through studio magic, the vocals hold that note for over two minutes straight, never fully completing the word “OUT”. (Side note: Portishead would later replicate this trick, consciously or not, on The Rip.) Tim Smith stretches his voice beyond human capabilities, turning it into an inhuman tone that becomes merely one of many in the monolithic harmony underneath, the famous ♭III-v-I chord sequence so beloved by Cardiacs, repeated in the form E G♯m C♯. Occasionally, a chord is held for 50% longer than anticipated, creating a magic dilation effect; I had a Cardiacs superfan friend once get mad at me for explaining the rhythmic pattern because it “ruined the magic” for him, so out of respect for the man, I’ll refrain from posting it here. The total effect is of reaching the top of a mountain, bursting into flames, and burning forever.
Describing the melismatic jubilus within early Christian liturgy, Charlie Looker writes: “The vowel opens like a portal within the word and we enter the realm of wordless melody. The jubilus exalts a power that is unnamable and it celebrates this limit of language’s reach. Words ultimately fail to represent, describe, or even adequately praise God, and the jubilus takes us, for a moment, to a place too spiritual for language.” Later, he describes this sacred vowel as a “vehicle for the singer’s religious impulse toward the continuity of existence because it is literally a continuous movement of air through the body … [the vowel] opens the body to the outside, to the continuum of matter.” Though Tim and co. sing a single note rather than a melisma, I feel like what Charlie says is absolutely applicable symbolically here, especially when the album's literally called Sing to God. The final lines of “Dirty Boy” portray a death by suffocation, and what is death if not the ineluctable return to the continuum of matter?