Onsombil

Abstract

This exegesis is a detailed discussion of Onsombil: an album composed by Paul McLennan-Kissel for the degree of MMus at the University of Otago. The musical and historical context of the album is revealed by a discussion of key points in McLennan-Kissel's musical history. The discussion of style and sound focusses on a penchant for musical organicism cohered by an overarching aesthetic of rough precision, and a blurring of the lines between dance music influenced production and the subtle inflections and variations of a band. Consistency of core instrumentation helps bind the album as a whole, as does the frequent use of self-sampling and seamless transitions between tracks. These encourage strong harmonic relationships across the album thus creating several instances of long-scale tension and release founded in a tendency towards harmonic, melodic and modulational descent. The main devices used to lead the exploration of conflict and ambiguity are: the interval of a fourth which insinuates pentatonicism and helps avoid triadic orthodoxy; and a recurring contention between flattened and natural sixth scale degrees, and the contention between Bb and B (and their enharmonic equivalents), both of which are a prominent manifestation of polymodality. The vast creative potential of computer-based composition is discussed in relation to the composition of Onsombil. This is tempered by a discussion of the complications of composing organic sounding music within the inorganic framework of computer-based composition. The double bass is cruicial in defining and complicating the harmony. This is manifest predominantly in its tendencies to pivot on the fifth degree of the tonality and to introduce polymodality. The unusual use of skank is also a key feature of the architecture of the album. The listening notes constitute a track by track musical analysis of the most pertinent features in terms of harmony, rhythm, groove, production and meaning.