Meshuggah

Meshuggah is a group of Swedish experimental metal originating in the town of Umeå in Sweden (cities from where the groups Cult off Luna are also originating, Khoma). Formed in 1987, it goes, progressively of its emancipation, to conceive the bases of a new innovative and technical metal style, which it is still the only one to control. With its beginnings, the group is mainly inspired by Thrash metal (as Metallica) but its style evolves/moves, without speaking about the sound (thanks to the participation of the members in the mixing of their album and the guitars 7 cords then 8 cords more recently). Meshuggah means " taré" or " fou" in Yiddish.

Biography

The first line-up is composed of Jens Kidman (guitar/song), Peter Nordin (low), Fredrik Thordendal (guitar/song), and Nicklas Lundgren (battery). They record a demonstration then a promising EP in 1989 named Psykisk Testbild. But it is the year 1991 which proves to be the large one turning of the group. Indeed, Meshuggah invites the talented beater Tomas Haake to join the formation, the group signs at Nuclear Blast and leaves occasion consequently a first album: Collapse contradictions. It is this album which reveals really the personality growing of the group, thanks to a style thrash but also chaotic and range.

It will have then to be waited until 1994 so that the group left two new discs. The EP None and Coil-Caged are born then. In 1995 one leaves the albums more recognized of Meshuggah: Destroy Erase Improve. It is indeed this second album which completely affirms the group in its style innovative extreme-chaotic-destructuré-square.

Whereas the group is in full expansion, Fredrik Thordendal and Tomas Haake are victims of industrial accidents compromising their musical future. Indeed, Fredrik, carpenter of profession, cut the 3rd phalange of major the left. Thomas, as for him, mutilates the hand. This sequence of bad luck reduced to silence the group during one year. The guitarist Mårten Hagström joined the group then and comes to support the first crippled but always active guitarist.

But fate continuous to bait itself on the formation, and it is with the turn of Peter Nordin to undergo physical disorders. Touched by serious problems with the internal ear, the bass player sees himself constrained to leave the group at the time of a US round with Machine Head. Thordendal then replaces temporarily the bass player then Meshuggah calls upon the services of Gustaf Hielm.

In 1998 leaves Chaosphere, an album pushed to the extreme, with a sound more worked and rhythmic the more effective.

In 2001, the new bass player from goes away after some disputes with the other members. He leaves his place to Dick Lövgren. The Nothing disc appears in 2002. This one is recorded with the former bass player Gustaf, the album was to be recorded with guitars 8 cords produced by the Nevborn violin maker but because of a delay they had to record the album with guitars 7 cords granted in F. This album leaves room to heavier fronts and plans much slower which will find an effectiveness particular into live.

Affirming their strong personality once again, Meshuggah leaves in 2004 a EP only one track 21 minutes named I. From its particular manufacture, the group acknowledges that it is unable of the rejouer into live. And due: Divided into volumes Haake and Fredrik Thordendal initially made a search for idea by improvising both, then the first (the beater) then recorded several structures while improvising and while playing on the destructuration. A selection was then carried out to choose the most successful passages, then Fredrik Thordendal has all " décodé" and rewritten in order to be able to play above. That could give something of the " kind; 2.1.2.2 .3.1.pause.4.1" , that is to say perfectly incomprehensible for a person external with the project. These various " morceaux" were then stuck while profiting from articulations (station-wagon) more or less rudimentary. The result is a metal powerful, cold, very dehumanized, at the same time destructuré by its asymmetrical measurements or its absence of measurement (sic!), and structured by its fronts of guitars scotchés with the hammerings of the battery. Some will find this performance of completely useless studio, others will find it original and impressive…

The same year, the group leaves new a opus, under the name of Catch 33. The innovations are a sound of guitar to contours more rounded, more " moelleux" , of the compositions which alternate between simple and repetitive (first titles of the album) and structures complex (for example " In Death is Life")and the battery which is in fact a sampler called " drumkit from hell" , a sampler modelled by recording Thomas Haake to exploit each blow of battery each different part of the battery with more than 120 various levels of nuances.

In 2006, the group republishes the Nothing album (going back to 2001). The large difference relates to especially the complete re-recording of the rhythmic guitars with their guitars 8 cords custom Ibanez and that of the battery, entirely rewritten with the sampler " drumkit from hell". The difference with the original version is without call, this time Ci the sound is heavier, but especially the generated serious sounds are more precise. They also benefit from it to slow down the tempo on the Nebulous piece, and to lengthen the Obsidian piece. This edition is also made up of a lives DVD no-claims bonus containing 3 pieces (Straws Pulled Random, In Death Is Death, Future Breed Machine) recorded at the time of Download festival 2005, as well as the clips of the group.

Characteristics

Meshuggah knew to invent its style by exploiting rhythmic dephasings of structures and polyrythmies on tempo means (often around 120 bmp), which makes it possible to transmit a new groove, in particular thanks to the style of the beater (of which " ghost notes" and sometimes the unforeseeable accents of case-clear or cymbal crash landing make think of turnings of free jazz).

If one takes a simple example, as in the first front of " Stengah" (Nothing album), the guitars and part of the battery (large case + clear case) follow a structure in 11/4 (actually twice 6 times and half) whereas a cymbal crash landing of the beater beats the tempo with the black one. So every 6,5 times the cymbal crash landing is found with hitch. Another example of dephasing, always in " Stengah" , when the principal front evoked previously is taken again in syncopes (with 01:44), everyone plays the structure in 11/4, put aside theclear one which exploits the third time of a structure into 4/4 (terribly perturbing). One can also note a technique often applied by the group which consists in entirely taking again the front before it finishes: always in the same example, the front is played once, then a half only, before being begun again. This kind of techniques of composition (to add, modify, remove an element where one does not expect it) is very recurring at Meshuggah and with final the music surprises without stop, of seconds in seconds.

To take a last example a little more complex, one can quote the first front of " Rational Gaze" (it principal front), which shows rhythmic in 3 layers:

a complex structure (which seems to be 14/8, 13/8, 14/8, 13/8, 15/8) simultaneously played by the unit guitare+basse+grosse case
a simple structure 4/4: cymbal crash landing exploited each time + case-clear over times weak (this kind of discussion thread is often present in the rhythmic ones and constitutes the base of the groove, for this kind of plans)
a structure made up with the other cymbals of the beater (Chinese and crash landing) which support sometimes the first structure, sometimes the second, acting of binder and disturbing element.

Meshuggah can also show structures much simpler into 4/4, than one finds of advantage on the older albums, like " Destroy, Erase, Improve" or " Contradictions collapse".

Side rhythmic guitars (what included the low one, knowing that most of the time it cheek either in unison, or the tonal one), the compositions are often dissonant (because using brought closer semitones enormously, cf " In Death is Death" or " Stengah") or is more traditional, using percussion harmonic ranges (minor harmonic for example). The play often alternates choked cords and free cords, without going to seek other techniques such as for example the harmonics, very recurring in metal. Thanks to guitars 7 or 8 cords, the agreements very serious and are often played on 4 cords (tonic, fifth, octave, and fifth with the octave). The group works its environments and its colors while being itself with the orders of the recordings, sometimes making last of the agreements or the notes, letting to us appreciate the sound of the instruments. The solos of guitar as for them are with the image of the group: completely tortuous and original, one could of advantage to speak about lunatic and schizophrenic sound sculpture.

Lastly, the singer, whose role is not the least, is an experienced hurlor, who can speak with low voice in certain titles. Its texts (often written by Divided into volumes Haake, the beater), always coloured, illustrate the compositions, treating chaos, of control, madness, confusion or destruction. If its dynamics is quasi null and its monotonic lines, it is to focus its energy on the rhythmic one: genuine cement, it is essential by binding the various structures in a solid whole. This remains a way of analyzing their music and cannot in no case to be representative of their work. For a deepened analysis, to see the bond towards the report below.

Discography

Psykisk Testbild, 1989
Collapse Contradictions, 1991
Nun, 1994
Selfcaged, 1995
Destroy Erase Improve, 1995
The True Human Design, 1997
Collapse Contradictions + Nun (reissue), 1998
Chaosphere, 1998
Rare Trax, 2001
Nothing, 2002
I, 2004
Wrestling 33,2005
Nothing (Remasterisation + DVD No-claims bonus), 2006
Obzen (in the course of recording), 2008

Bonds

official site
Memory of musicology

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