The work of bass and riff
Shygirl describes her stage for Swallow! through its players: a drummer, a multi-instrumentalist and sometimes a bassist. The gritty bassline and manipulated riff of Live the Life You Like provide a useful starting point for thinking about those forces. When a prominent sound in an electronic track is connected to a player’s action on stage, a listener’s attention has another place to go. I am interested first in who carries each part of the song.[1]
Working with Karma Kid and Casey MQ, Shygirl links her wish for natural instrumentation to the independent rock she heard as a teenager. The musical choice translates that familiarity into instrumental forces. A guitar’s presence leaves open how rhythm, bass and voice share space within an arrangement. Her statement that electronic roots remain makes it useful to read this search in relation to the existing repertoire. The new personnel offers another way of working on those songs.[1]
Shygirl’s description of punk energy in Live the Life You Like is attached to a particular bassline and a manipulated riff. I find that specificity useful: a genre term is connected to two jobs inside the song. The weight of the bass and the sharpness of the riff can carry different functions at once. My reading is that considering electronic and instrumental elements together opens up the arrangement. Concentrating only on the guitar risks losing the dance-music connection she says remains.[1]
The share of playing together
The stage opens those decisions to other musicians. Shygirl mentions rehearsals and then describes room for spontaneous moments while they play together. The weight of a beat or the ending of a phrase could change through the players’ responses to one another. That is an inference from the working method she describes. A plausible alternative is that the live group largely preserves predetermined arrangements. The personnel list does not quantify the balance between rehearsal and spontaneity.[1]
Shygirl herself connects natural instrumentation with a more authentic sound. I read that as a statement about how she wants to work rather than a ranking of sounds. A programmed rhythm embodies choices, as does a rhythm played by a drummer. For a listener, the useful question concerns which choices carry the tension, movement or pause within a song. The personnel announced for Swallow! provides a starting point for asking that question through the individual tasks inside the music.[1]
For the European tour she describes for March, the programme question that interests me is how Live the Life You Like’s bassline and manipulated riff sit beside voice and drums. The named song and the named players are enough to begin with. Her wish to avoid repeating herself explains a personal reason for the instrumental search. The opportunity for the listener lies in following how a song is assembled: the movement carried by the bass, the riff’s entrance and the room the performers leave one another.[1]