49 Seconds Without Bass, Then 1:37
Four songs Kiyeon Band left at the playground. The first one goes a long while with no low end.
A new song has arrived at the playground today. This time it's Kiyeon Band.
They're a five-piece formed by friends of the same age: Kim Da-sol, Kim Beom-geun, Kiyeon, Kwon Tae-won and Kang Seong-sil. They describe themselves as "a band that sings the heart."
For 49 Seconds Nobody Plays Anything Low
The first song, 'Let's Go', goes completely quiet around the 45-second mark. For more than three seconds there is nothing at all, and then a voice enters at 48 seconds.
From there it runs on voice and thin accompaniment for a long stretch. Measure the sound band by band and the 20–150Hz low end accounts for only 1–5% of the total. Which means the bass and the kick still haven't arrived. It stays that way for 49 seconds.
Then at 1:35 the low end starts filling in, and by 1:37 it has climbed to 79%. Bass and drums arrive together right there. Not twice as much, not ten times as much — something that wasn't there simply is.
What's good about this song is that it holds those 49 seconds. There are five of them and they all wait. Because they waited, 1:37 sounds enormous. They didn't turn anything up; they emptied what came before.
The band wrote that 'Let's Go' is about reaching a hand out to someone having a hard time. "Your tears will fill someone's heart, and that someone truly worries about you and is holding out a hand." That the accompaniment in a song about reaching out waits 49 seconds before arriving is a nice coincidence, if it is one.
All Four Songs Are Here
| Song | Starts at |
|---|---|
| Opening | 0:00 |
| Let's Go | 0:47 |
| Forest | 4:42 |
| Love me more | 8:34 |
| Road in a Dream | 13:04 |
They say 'Forest' was written to climb out of burnout. Just as there is no eternal day and no eternal night, the sun is always there even when the clouds come.
Between the songs there are stretches where the members talk. Don't skip them — listen straight through and you start to see why the songs are in this order.
When to Listen
Use earphones if you have them. Forty-nine seconds without low end is hard to feel on a speaker. You end up unsure whether it's missing from the recording or from your device.
Evening suits it better than a morning commute. If 17 minutes and 36 seconds feels like a lot at once, just take the first four minutes. Everything this band does is in those four minutes.
And 1:37. That's the one to remember.
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Sources
- 1.[Singing Playground: NONOL] 기연밴드 Full Ver_우리가자 Forest Love me more 꿈속의 길 ↗
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