The Exquisite Machinery of Torture

- transcription by mti

This transcription is rhythms only. If you can do guitar tabs, you're welcome to do a better transcription! (I don't know anything about palm muting and stuff like that.) My goal was to figure out the beat and metrics in this sick song.

Check out the full transcription to see the whole picture.

The orded sequence of riffs

00:00	A,A,A,A
00:29	B,B
00:57	C1
01:11	C-fill
01:13	B,B
01:41	C2,C2
01:55	D,D,D,D
02:23	E
02:51	E-fill
02:55	B,B
03:23	C2,C2
03:27	C1
03:51	C-fill

Below follow the riffs, in horizontal "tracker" notation. The song runs in 4/4, with each beat divided in triple meter (3/4). (Fredrik of Meshuggah views the song as a 6/8 blues.) The feeling of extreme syncopation is a result of extensive metric displacement.

Each character below represents a 16th note in aforementioned triplets (24th if you wish):

B	"bass crunch" (bass drum + rhythm guitars + bass guitar)
S	snare drum
H	hihat/cymbal
-	rest
=	hold previous note

Riff A (intro)

	H--H--H--
	B==B=--B=
	-----S---	5 times, then

	H--
	B==

(total: 16 triplets)

Riff B (rap music)

	B--BB--		13 times, then

	B--BB

(total: 32 triplets)

Riff C1 (torture)

	B=BBBB-		13 times, then
	-S---S-

	B=BBB
	-S---

(total: 32 triplets)

Riff C2

	B=BBBB-		6 times, then
	-S---S-

	B=BBBB
	-S----

(total: 16 triplets)

C-fill

	Riff B once, then

	S----

(total: 4 triplets)

Riff D (solo)

	H--H--H--H--H--H--H--H--
	B==BBB-B=B-B=B-B=BB-B=B-
	---S---S---S---S----S---

	H--H--H--H--H--H--H--H--
	B==BBB-B=B-B=B-BB=B-B=BB
	S----S---S---S----S---S-

(total: 16 triplets)

Riff E ("I sense")

	B==BBB--B=-
	---S----S--	4 times, then

	B==B

(total: 16 triplets)

E-fill

	Riff B three times, then

	---

(total: 8 triplets)

end

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