One listen.

This is a song I like quite a lot, but never wanted to write about it until this morning, I think. Decided to go in, did it, and am happy with the result. Think I struggled a bit here and there, but everything seemed to come forward easily enough.

Underworld’s “Pearl’s Girl” is from Second Toughest in the Infants.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Calm and low, and smooth. Easy and gentle, and flowing. Focus, perhaps, or just a moment coming into view, into clarity, and that seems to be the case. Things grow more distinct and a looping blip of a voice before percussion begins its steady shake and strike. Bass builds, everything disappears but the percussion remains.

That bass builds again; it throbs louder, then disappears. And so on. And the percussion changes to lower, then becomes more full again. A form is established, and now the bass remains. A new strike around it, marking more of the beat. The bass grows and shrinks and everything is heavy, and then it’s just the bass flying over like a helicopter.

And the percussion returns in fuller form, pulsing, striking, shuffling, forming shape under a start, bright sky, or what feels like light coming in. Voice comes in, describing scene. Describing form and shape and interconnection and relation. Describing a lot of things, finding a line and following it through whilst more sound behind comes in. Sound echoing in a filling space.

A change and one word loops eternally, stuck whilst everything else moves forward. It disappears and the earlier blip returns, changes shape. It is disconnected from its source, and a light crackling of a soft sound before vocals return.

All of this is intense and heavy, but it doesn’t crush; it is light and calming, and mundane, and those sounds that started everything off come in now, and it all continues on. It all continues on and doesn’t relent, but it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hit; it washes over form and shape whilst creating it.

The vocals get stuck again and it’s just percussion, and then just vocals. Focus on the vocals before percussion returns, and the blip, and the percussion shakes and shuffles and strikes and is a punctuation of static until it becomes the sole focus again. For a few moments before those introductory sounds return, anyway. And it’s all calm, and pretty, and maybe everything has been obliterated. Maybe everything was washed away. Those sounds change, and realisation is there. Last thoughts are here, and the percussion disappears, and these sounds, clear and nearly crystalline, changing shape as light passes through them, looking at an open sky, appreciating the way light changes as dull light falls to colour and day, and the percussion returns. The percussion returns and plays underneath, gentle, suggesting, playing along as everything fades and the song ends.