Eradication - Intervention

Commentary by Mikko Gynther

Intervention has a strong prog rock feel to it. It's the longest Eradication piece to date and consists of three parts which all have a very different mood. One could say there's a story driving the composition but compared to the other conceptual Eradication records it's way more abstract and there's a lot more room for interpretation.

The instrumentation of Intervention includes a guitar, a bass, drums, keyboards and a violin. All parts are arranged in a way that they can be played by a single musician without overdubs which is something we have never done before. To take the approach even further the guitar parts are played on a single guitar. Bass is changed between parts 1 and 2 but there's plenty of time to do so. Keyboard parts with different sounds overlap but should be playable by one person with two keyboards and sustain pedals.

The first part depicts creative solitude. It's based on a theme that is constructed little by little. Finally the theme is played in full once before a short transition to the second part. The sound is softer and more melodic than most of the music we have done. There are quite a few modulations to spice up this mellow part. The bass part is played on a fretless and there's plenty of delay in guitar and violin. Also the guitar part is played using volume swells to make the sound less aggressive.

The middle part is all about a mad circus going on in many peoples lives. It distracts and drains energy. Style wise the part is country with a fair deal of bluegrass and jazz blended in. Violin and keyboards have a backing role whereas guitar is very prominent. In fact the whole part could be considered a guitar solo. To create a chaotic feel the part has polymetric and dissonant elements. A few varied rhythmic motives of the final part make transition smoother.

The last part depicts despair and a feeling of loss pushing through it all. Basically the whole part centers around a tone row introduced in the beginning. Also the theme from part one is revisited to create contrast and give hope of preserving the creativity of part one. The rest is mostly variation although realizing it may require quite a bit of analysis. For example the violin melody in a fast triplet feel part consists of four transformations of the tone row and it covers most of the part while guitar and keyboards alternate on the transformations much faster. Of course there's a little bit of new stuff and tonal music here and there to keep it together.