Albums Where the Production Feels Like Part of the Songwriting

“Halleluhwah” sounds like a band holding one groove for the better part of a record side. Irmin Schmidt recalls that it’s a collage of several takes, edited to keep the rhythm alive through each change. Start “Oh Yeah” next, where Damo Suzuki’s backward voice makes the edit something you can hear for itself.

Timbaland was playing a keyboard loop when Elliott heard a song in it. After he added the bass line, she started finding the voice of “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly).” Play it with “Sock It 2 Me” to hear how differently her phrases sit against two beats, one slippery and low, the other full of bright, sharp replies.

On “715 – CRΣΣKS,” Justin Vernon sings a single line and the system Chris Messina built branches it into harmonies. The notes of the chord rise and stop with the singer’s breath. Set it beside the saxophones and voices of “8 (circle)” to hear two different ways this album makes a group sound gather around one voice.

On the original UK album, “Tomorrow Never Knows” keeps a firm drum pattern under tape loops that appear and vanish. That makes the sound itself a source of movement while the harmony stays put. “Yellow Submarine” takes the same interest in recorded sound into a singalong. Listen for the noises that turn the chorus into a place you can imagine being.

Hal Blaine’s hollow water-bottle knocks open “Caroline, No,” and a slightly faster tape playback raises the pitch of Brian Wilson’s voice. The change brings the question in that song into a more exposed register. Listen also to the plucked piano strings that introduce “You Still Believe in Me.” They make its first notes feel unusually tentative.

On “2/1,” vocal notes cycle independently and meet in combinations that keep changing. Compare that with the piano figures in “1/1.” You can follow one familiar sound for a while and then discover it sitting inside a different chord. Those encounters supply much of the music’s movement.

The title track lets its percussive sounds fold across one another until a pattern you thought you knew starts asking for a different step. Compare “Holy Child,” with William Basinski, where repetition has a different kind of weight. The movement among attacks, gaps and repeated sounds supplies the momentum a chord progression might give another record.

Mike Simpson found the opening sound of “The New Pollution” on a privately pressed record by a family of religious singers. Its arrival sets up the song’s jumps in sound before the groove even starts. On “Where It’s At,” bits of speech take their place among the instrumental sounds and give Beck something to answer.

Daniel Lopatin cut up sounds from old television commercials for this album. On “Sleep Dealer,” a breathlike fragment makes a rhythmic hook before you can think of it as a voice. The title track gives you a slower way to hear the same fascination with repetition. A small fragment can hold you even after its original purpose is gone.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis wanted the track under “Nasty” and Jackson’s delivery to have the same sharpness. The tight accents give her places to punch a word or leave a beat hanging. “What Have You Done for Me Lately” grew out of a backing track Jam and Lewis had set aside for their own record. You can hear what Jackson’s timing makes of it.

The group worked out its sampled parts before recording and wrote with playing those parts live in mind. In “My Girls,” follow the repeated figure as it makes room for handclaps and voices. “Brother Sport” keeps changing what a repeated chant can do as figures collect around it. The way the sounds are added is part of how each song is written.

The hard metallic sounds in “Faceshopping” give the changing voice something to push against. “Immaterial” drives a pitched-up vocal with a bright beat you can follow right into the refrain. The surfaces of those sounds help tell you whether a change of identity feels abrasive, playful, or like something to dance to.

Engineer Russell Elevado describes flipping the tape on a section of Charlie Hunter’s guitar solo in “The Root.” Listen for how those backward swells move against the beat, then follow the layers of harmony D’Angelo sang one part at a time. The recording gives the guitar and voice ways to move that neither could get from a single pass.