say it back

every word sung back

2:50 · 140 BPM · C minor

No voice talks over this one. She said each line once into a TONGUES, and four of them sing every word back on the melody, a syllable a note. WORD FOR WORD sings the bridge from nothing, and PECKING ORDER mixes it.

0:00 / 2:50

The rack

Every module it was played on, a card each time it’s used, in the order the sound goes through them, with the cables between them. While it plays, each lights with its own part: BORROW’s chord leaves for the bridge, MONOLITH’s cable is in only for the bridge, and FIREFLIES’s is pulled at the end. Her lines went into the TONGUESes before the song; the notes and gates come from the score, so they have no cables.

MONOLITH's panel: a tall black slab standing on a stony desert at dawn in gold halftone, the sun just over its top behind WIDTH, the big knob, rays across the sky; the slab's edges one frame of bare circuit board lit white in cells, NEAR a round lit button at its foot — monoliththe choir in the bridge

FIREFLIES's panel: an old glass jar with a punched lid in gold dots, the whole panel tall; inside it a plume of sixty little oval windows of bare circuit board, most of them lit yellow-green like fireflies, a few strays out among the knobs and jacks — fireflieschimes on C minor pentatonic

TONGUES's panel: a woman singing a long note, in gold halftone: her eyes shut under a crown of big daisies and poppies, garlands of daisies down both sides of her face, her mouth wide open; its sixteen upper teeth windows of bare glass lit bone white, its tongue a screen of dots lit rose, WORD on it like a stud and the TAKE button at its foot — tonguesthe chorus’s take again: the harmony

SPIRAL's panel: straight down the well of a stone spiral stair at night in gold halftone, the treads winding round, and at the bottom of the well a lit spiral of windows of bare circuit board, two arms round a round centre, ZOOM the big knob below it and FALL a lit round button at the foot — spiralthe arps’ notes

BORROW's panel: a magpie swooping straight at you in gold halftone, wings spread across the panel and beak open, its head under the name; four violet lights round the big BORROW knob, three of them lit — borrowthe arps

THUMP's panel: a black rabbit in gold halftone dots on black, lit from above, its eyes two dark hollows and its ears either side of the name, with twenty-two knobs and jacks on a staggered grid — thumpthe 808, the snare, the hats, and the pump

The PECKING ORDER panel: black, and in gold dots eight hens roosting up a ladder roost, four up each side to the top, two by two, under the boards of a pitched roof with light through its cracks. A jack by each hen, I to VIII; the knobs up the middle. — pecking orderthe back’s mix: harmony, arps, choir, chimes

ELSEWHEN's panel: black, a tall pointed doorway in the middle of a stone wall in gold dots, its ring of arch stones under the name, a vaulted hall going back and back inside it in a window of bare circuit board, and a wedge of light falling out of it across a stone floor to the foot — elsewhenthe room

SYCAMORE's panel: heavy curtains drawn in vertical gold lines over a zigzag floor, on black, with fifteen knobs, jacks and two lit buttons on a staggered grid — sycamoreon the lead: each line out of its reverse reverb

word for wordthe bridge, sung from nothing

The words

I said it once into the dark.
You caught it in your teeth.
Into the dark, in your teeth.
It’s coming home to me.

Say it back, say it back to me,
sweeter than I said it.
Every word you took,
give it back in gold.

Hold it under your tongue
till it tastes like you.
Under your tongue, under your tongue.
Sing it till it’s true.

Say it back, say it back to me,
sweeter than I said it.
Every word you took,
give it back in gold.

I can’t sing it like you do.
I can’t sing it like you do.
I can’t sing it like you do.
I can’t sing it.

Say it back, say it back to me.

Say it back, say it back to me,
sweeter than I said it.
Every word you took,
give it back in gold.

Give it back in gold.

How it was made

Nobody speaks in this song. Vesper, the voice of TONGUES’s first demos, said each line once, and her takes went into TONGUES’s IN with TAKE held, before the song started. TONGUES cut each one into syllables, and every gate it gets sings one of them on the note at V/OCT, in tune, the WORD jack choosing which. That is how the words come back as a melody. Where TONGUES cut two words as one syllable (“say it”, “to me”), they’re sung on one note, the way she said them. Each held note holds its vowel.

There are four TONGUESes. One has the chorus’s take and sings the lead and the chopped hooks. A second has the same take, her voice split into both, and sings the harmony a third or so under. The other two have a verse’s take each. In the bridge, verse one’s TONGUES is shuffled, so its syllables come out in any order and hang there. Each lead goes through a SYCAMORE, so every line swells in out of its own reverse reverb. WORD FOR WORD sings the bridge from nothing, off the words on its tiles, with a small choir of itself.

THUMP is the beat: its long kick is the 808, gliding to each chord’s root, under the hats from TONGUES’s page. BORROW’s chip chord and SPIRAL’s arpeggios, played on a second BORROW, run through THUMP, so every kick pumps them. FIREFLIES rings C minor pentatonic, and MONOLITH’s choir comes in for the bridge, held near on its last chord and cut to nothing for the break. Two PECKING ORDERs mix it: the back has the harmony, the arps, the choir and the chimes, and goes through ELSEWHEN’s room into the front. The front has the singing on top, with TOP turned to whichever voice is singing, and the chord, the kick, the snare and the hats under it.

140 BPM · C minor · 2:50 · −16.4 LUFS · four tongues, three sycamores, word for word, thump, two borrows, spiral, fireflies, monolith, elsewhen, two pecking orders · the voice: Vesper, sung by TONGUES