SEVEN songs that go AAAAHHHHH
A learned and holy journey into music's most important syllable
The superiority of the number seven is, at this stage in our scholastic research, a first principle truth that cannot and will not be fucked with. Nevertheless, it is human observation and communication that brings such truths to bear, allowing the universe to witness and document its boundless beauty at the steep cost of allowing a whole race of beings to gasbag and prattle their unsteady path through time and space immensurable, planetary or universal apocalypse pending.
Short of the death of everything, we sing. Ideally, we sing as in choirs of old, settling on elongated vowel sounds that create a comfortable illusion of permanence, whether we sing of pain (“AAAHHH”), pleasure (“AAAaaahhh”), sated thirst (“aahhh”), or curt understanding (“ah.”). Yet we reside and rot in modernity, and so our sacred sound must also be transposed into newer, harsher environs, scattering our ideal into the ceaseless gales of creativity, opening our beauteous AHs to the possibilities of the impure, the transcendent, and perhaps the downright distasteful.
Igor Stravinsky - Pastorale
Every fucking composition ever made prior to a certain date that nobody is certain of is apparently classical or folk, and nobody is sure which performance from which composer from which era should be excavated from dusty second-hand shop bargain bins to amble into the internet’s canon. How do we do this? I don’t know. There’s undoubtedly a much more primordial AH out there than this one — this guy Stravinsky existed last century, and I pray you listen to this wonderfully brief sequence of technical AHing before some fringe group ignites a conspiracy that the twentieth century never actually happened, forcing us to retcon all of the art supposedly contained therein as deepfakes or whatever.
Diamanda Galas - Double Barrel Prayer
To my mind, Diamanda Galas’ enduring appeal lies in the way she deconstructed all four of her voiceboxes in order to upend vocally-driven music itself on The Litanies of Satan, but as it turns out, she had an AHccessible side to her work, replete with popular song structures, sick choreography, and some slick brandishing of a handgun, all dovetailing from an all-time AH that comes straight from Galas’ ferociously arrhythmic heart. Stravinsky had only been decomposing for seventeen years when this was released. What happened to us? I’m not sure, but this video reassures me that it can’t be all bad.
Nine Inch Nails - Just Like You Imagined
The twenty-first century is closing in fast, but Trent Reznor has taken enough drugs that he’s there already. This track represents a Platonic ideal in this field; across its nearly four minutes of cumulative instrumentation, the only input from the vocals is a single, drawn out AH laden with harmonies and contending with a truly oddball piano solo to be the song’s central thesis. If you’re already familiar, please direct your attention to this behind-the-scenes footage of the AH itself being coordinated, and if you’re a piano-loving simpleton, there’s also this version with Mike Garson that truly fucking pops off, aside from the inaugural AH being inexplicably transmogrified into some kind of OORR. Get it together.
Meshuggah - Sum
You all know Meshuggah, right? Well our metaller-in-chief Nex knows more than you, and is considered in some journalistic corners to be the primary primary source of the aged djentlemen, perhaps more knowledgeable than the band themselves. Don’t believe me? Take it away mein freund!:
It’s not beneath us to enter the Konami Code for a one-time shortcut to presenting you with the most profound AHs in human history. And who says we’re the ones moving the goalposts when The Shug chiseled their single-suite album by extending the penultimate track into the last to create the illusion of a seamless transition? Pff, amateurs.
Trivia time! When he recorded this only AH you’ll ever need for the rest of your life, was Jens, who may or may not know all of Tom Cruise’s dirty pillow-talk secrets:
A) Falling down the Niesen Stairway?
B) Angrily answering the question, “Was ist der erste Buchstabe des Alphabets?”?
C) Letting out a slightly exaggerated sigh over the fact Tune-In Hookup didn’t take off?
D) Having his pharynx examined by the world’s slowest doctor?
You’ll find the answer on page three of the booklet for the 1987 CD version of Prince’s The Black Album.
- Nex
Baroness - Aleph
Where most metal-adjacent excursions into the Land of Ah require some serious squinting in order to ascertain the joy that’s supposedly inherent in the making of music, our second instance of a Platonic ideal in this list, “Aleph” from Baroness’ lively Red [Album?], is an exuberant act of Fun With Friends whose instrumentation exists entirely in service of two raucous instances of AH belted with bundles of Baizley brand brashness. Live, Laugh, AAAHHHH
Oneohtrix Point Never - Sleep Dealer
I’m certain that Brian Eno and a million other keyboard nerds had already AHed themselves into a digital frenzy by 2011, but I’ve already skipped that era, and when I think of vintage sounds reorganised I think of Daniel Lopatin. “Sleep Dealer” absolutely does not represent the quintessential AH choir keyboard setting I had in mind when I dreamed up this list, but it does justify my shitty gag about sating your thirst from earlier.
edIT - Dex
This is closer to the quintessential AH keyboard tone, placing our AH in a future it never saw coming, bereft of humanity, forever wanting and failing to be followed by a MEN and a pivot to the tonic. No thanks, and no such luck! The future is now, in 2004, and the religious undertones that once graced AHs of yore (should I have covered this in the intro?) have been discarded in favour of a higher power, music that worships naught but its own sonic character, and is elevated into a postmodernity pure and true that requires no faith in God or reverence for theology. The future has abandoned God’s love, and is all the more inclusive for it. Our concerns for the chastity of AH are soothed by silky sound. We can now simply relax. With me now: close your eyes, take a deep, slow breath through your nose, tilt your head back a little, let your jaw drop, and get that larynx vibrating…
Greatly written, Milo! Well done!
Time to purchase that Prince album...
Aleph is so so good AAAHHHHHHHHHH