John’s “As Can Be” used for a deconsonantation experiment
To some of you, this might be a weekend WTF. To some others, perhaps, a start to an interesting discussion. And I think I just made a new word, as I have never heard of deconsonantation before.
Stephen Boyd, aka DJ Empirical used As Can Be, the opener to John’s debut solo album Niandra LaDes And Usually Just A T-shirt for an experiment. The song was edited out so all the consonants were removed from it..e.g. its first line “When you’ve got a clean smile” is now something like “Euiaeiai”. The author explains it this way:
My theory here was that since melody is carried in vowels (as opposed to consonants), if one were to edit out the consonants, all that would be left would be a sort of “concentrated” version of the song. I think the results were pretty interesting.
You can download As Can Be (Quahogs’ Vowelized mix) at this URL. And in case you have done something pretty wild with an actual reason to any other song, it would be nice to know.
Also, I assume you all know that Untitled #2 is known to be a totally different song when reversed, that Well I’ve Been contains a long monologue by the late actor River Phoenix when played backwards and that Enough Of Me and One More Of Me blend into a single song when combined.
You might also want to check out:
Niandra LaDes And Usually Just A T-shirt
A basic lecture on melody
