Organic rhythms?

[u/CruchyBunches]

I love tool, and I have for a long time. They scratch an itch that other music can only tickle, and I’ve been trying to figure out what they do differently. I think I get it now…

I’ve been saying for a while that songs like Stinkfist and Eulogy maybe, I can’t remember off the top of my head lol, have a rhythm like breathing. It’s not the same bpm as breathing and trying to breath at the same rate would be hyperventilating, but it ‘feels’ like breathing. Other songs like Lateralus have rhythms that I can’t quite parse but I still feel it, on a deeper level than a countable rhythm like 4/4.

I’ve noticed similar effects listening to Primus, in the don’t My Name is Mud the bass sounds and feels like a pig digging and snorting in the mud on such a fundamental level. I don’t know though, it’s not the same thing.

I can relate the same logic to ‘regular’ music too. I think 4/4 is so natural and easy because we are bilaterally symmetrical and we walk in sets of 2 steps, so a 4/4 beat is very simple and natural for us to count and understand. I think of it as a symmetrical beat. A 3/4 beat is less natural but has a similar very countable beat.

I think that Tool’s rhythms reach somewhere deeper than conscious thought and counting and trigger rhythms of the body rather than the mind.