in the 2000s/early 2010s these completely steady, fade-into-the-background hi hats were still really common. this combined with the overall flatness creates a sense of smooth motion: driving music. bouncy yet still not a million miles from kraftwerk or neu.
here there’s no steady thread. samples tumbling around the stereo field.
this one sounds like it was made with random default samples on fl studio.
the hi hats here are weirdly loud, they sound like the repetitive chatter of some kind of insect you’d hear in the bushes in the summer.
like in the first one his voice sort fades in and out of being noticeably autotuned. a cyborg that only looks artificial in certain lighting.
more pre-2010s flat, straight-line motion. here it’s a military march.
not a cyborg, but no regular human either. the idea of this stuff having a mythological quality, maybe starting to make sense?
pulled out of the past into the present again. 3D and cascading.
sudden reverb at 0:55. a second wtf vocal moment at 1:27.
in planescape torment there’s a character who’s face will bubble or go through other grotesque transformations periodically while he’s talking. some of these vocal mutations or changes in inflection remind me of that.
sounds in the periphery are similarly malleable.