STAGE 4 – (G+H+I+J)
Post-Awareness Stage 4 is where serenity and the ability to recall singular memories gives way to confusions and horror. It’s the beginning of an eventual process where all memories begin to become more fluid through entanglements, repetition and rupture.
(The Caretaker on Stage 4)
Album Cover – Stage 4
This painting, to me, represents the feeling of being unable to recognize family members or friends that you used to have fond memories with. This is where denial gives way to confusion, as things that used to seem human have given way to a muddled mess of a sculpture. Familiarity is nearly lost entirely.
Waveforms and Song Analysis – Stage 4
Immediately incredibly unsettling and overwhelming to the listener. The static suddenly gets louder, and is the main thing you can hear. Different muffled samples from voices, instruments and tracks blip in and out on different sides of the listener’s head. This track needs to be experienced with headphones.
While listening, I kept trying to focus and hone in on one noise happening around me, but it was gone as soon as I recognized it.
A lot of noises play for less than a second, making it sound very technological. It is as if different sound effects are being played from different areas of the room.
Some things I could recognize were a light music box sound playing from my left every so often, a garbled mess of noise that was constantly fluctuating in my right ear, and short selections of ballroom music in front of me that barely last a second.
Nothing plays for long enough to be recognizable, or to even sound like music at all.
Everything is strange, confusing and vague.
When listening, I feel as if so many things are going on in my head at once that nothing can be registered.
Sometimes, the static sounds like the rustling of clothing, or maybe even footsteps.
It is very easy to zone out during this track, as it all feels like meaningless noise. Sometimes the mind gets so overstimulated with noise that it just shuts down.
At one point the first track can be heard, very slowed down and warped, on the right for a couple seconds. This occurs a couple times with the same section of music. Sometimes a differently warped version of the tune plays on the left.
It feels like I’m experiencing everything and nothing at the same time. It’s both overwhelming and underwhelming. On one hand, I want so badly to hear something I can recognize, but on the other hand there is so much going on in this track that I’d rather the noise just stop altogether.
As I continue listening, it feels like more and more of the track makes sense. I begin recognizing patterns in the sounds I’m hearing, and know what to expect to hear on each side of my headphones.
The static frequently starts and stops, bringing the music with it. At one point in the track, a particular form of static switches rapidly back and forth between the left and right. After noticing this, this static became louder and overtook any other music playing behind it. Sometimes, the static stops, and everything becomes quiet, but this never lasts long. Soon, a high-pitched beeping noise plays along with the static, in the same rhythm and speed as the static. Then, a scattered piano melody plays softly, almost undetectable in the middle of my head.
Then, the static and high pitched noise stops, and the track returns briefly to the scattered noise from earlier in the piece. However, this time the music is much lower, deeper and less recognizable. Occasionally, the static and noise returns on the right. It feels like the different sounds are starting and stopping in a circular pattern. Then, the sound becomes more focused back to the front. It frequently starts and stops, leaving silence.
Sudden stop in G1, then switches to H1 immediately.
Notes play for half of a second, before switching off. The noise is located in an arc on every side of the listener’s head.
Further into the track, the notes stop for longer periods of time, leaving silence and static for a few uncomfortable moments.
Even further, the notes begin to play for longer before cutting off, and have more of a shaky feeling to them.
Soon, an echoed white noise sound begins playing in the background, slowly getting louder. The shorter notes decrease in volume alongside this noise, but do not disappear. The track continues like this for a while, with confusing, static-filled white noise playing alongside quiet notes that start and stop rapidly. This white noise vaguely sounds like being underwater, or on the outside of a loud cave.
Even further into the track, the white noise decreases in volume, and deeper-pitched notes begin playing in the same pattern as before. The white noise begins to sound like a windstorm, and transforms into a low humming. Then, the white noise is gone, and the listener returns to the same kind of noise that was heard in the beginning.
The noise returns once more, but deeper- sounds more like waves against a shore. The notes in the background are much quieter, and they play less frequently. Then the interlude ends, and the notes playing from the beginning is back.
The tone suddenly changes, and the notes stop. The noise from before, pitched down and warped, returns. It sounds unsettling- wrong. Then, a loud, deep siren-like noise starts playing. When it ends, the white noise returns, sounding more like rain now.
The sound returns to the original pattern, but the rain-sounding white noise can be heard in the background, and it slowly gets louder.
The notes get shorter, and pause more often. Then they become longer again.
This track feels very menacing, as if the listener is in the middle of a hurricane. This track almost has phases, where the two phases of white noise and rapidly changing notes alternate in volume.
This is immediately unsettling. Reading the title, you’d presume that the music would be more cheerful than it is. Samples of notes from a track that almost sounds like a music box start and stop in a similar manner to H1, but they last longer and sound more organized.
A space-sounding white noise track plays in the background, and it is almost calming. These space noises become more present as the track continues. The white noise slowly turns into actual music, which sounds like a relaxing spa soundtrack.
This is not a break from the decaying feeling, but it is certainly more pleasant than what was playing before. It almost makes me want to just sit back and take a break from everything.
It continues like this for the rest of the track, gradually becoming more noticeably muffled.
This track’s transition from the last one is barely noticeable. The stopping and starting notes from H1 return, with new slowed, sampled music behind it.
This track alternates between the scattered notes and a soft background track that sounds like it would play in an abandoned home at night.
The background track becomes more corrupted as the track continues, and the melody strays from its calming nature. After a few minutes, it returns back to normal. It gradually becomes more unsettling, and the scattered notes continue, more muffled and high-pitched than before.
Soon, the background track doesn’t sound like music anymore, just a white noise sound similar to the one in H1. This time, it sounds more like the slowed, low-pitched sounds of strong wind.
Then, the music returns, in a more minor key. The alternating notes sound more technological now, as if in a sci-fi movie.
Then everything calms down, leaving the quiet, ominous sounds of a dark cave. Static picks up in the background, alternating between the listener’s ears. The static becomes more like notes, playing for less than half a second before disappearing. These notes stop and start for a while before stopping altogether. The cave noises develop into soft music, and the static returns. The music generally stays this way until the end of the track, although it is more clearly corrupted now.
Stage 4 Conclusions
Stage 4 cements feelings of confusion and fear in the listener. Tracks in this stage sound significantly less like music, and more like a cacophony of sound and static. It is much more difficult to glean the meaning of any individual decisions made in mixing tracks.
There are barely any short samples of music anymore, and each track spans around 20 minutes. The names of tracks are less symbolic, and become more logical (Stage 4 Post Awareness Confusions & Stage 4 Temporary Bliss State). This may represent how The Caretaker is now unable to coherently label anything that’s happening around them.
In Stage 4, The Caretaker is likely experiencing the horror that comes with the realization that their memories are slowly decaying. They are unable to communicate with friends and family as effectively as before, and dissociation becomes much easier as their ability to cope with their condition slowly slips away.
This stage almost feels like the introduction to a panic attack. The tone is incredibly melancholy and distorted, and it becomes increasingly difficult to recognize any significant throwbacks to earlier tracks. Even the “bliss state” in the middle of the stage is disorienting and anxiety-inducing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that The Caretaker can truly experience an ignorant bliss anymore.