Feelz Tru by Genevieve Artadi
When describing the structure of the song, I would break it down into two following sections:
Intro
Verse (or verse A)
Chorus
Post-chorus
Verse (or verse A)
Chorus
New section in 4/4 (or verse B)
In the first section, Genevieve combines polyrhythm and syncopation. She layers her voice/instrument recordings on top of each other seemingly without trying to make them sound coherent and pleasing. The song feels “chopped” a bit and leaves listeners in distress. I am stating this as a practising listener. I was distressed.
Apart from being syncopated, the melodic lines are heavily panned and mixed quite “tight”. That creates a claustrophobic feeling. On top of that, some of the recordings occupy more or less the same frequency range, her voice has the same texture and pitch and might overlap a bit.
However, those strange composing and mixing techniques do resonate with the lyrics. In the first section, her thoughts are tangled, she’s confused, repeating the question “Why?”.
When the second section of the song comes in, it feels like a big relief. All of the instrumentation changes. Genevieve introduces a gentle pad, a dreamy synth that sounds almost like bells, and a nice quiet drumbeat in 4/4 – the time signature that has the most natural feeling to it and is the easiest to understand and follow. All of the channels are now treated with reverb, which creates a wider sound, so it almost feels like there is more air to breathe. Now the listener can relax and listen to what she has to say, as the lyrics calm down as well: simple “feels true”.