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Reminds me of Aksak rhythms in Middle Eastern / Mediterranean traditions. If you try to translate it to Western schemas, it is roughly 9/8. But that's not really correct, as that would imply 9 evenly spaced notes, with an emphasis on every 3 notes, or maybe a 4+5, or something like that. It's closer if you break it down like 2+2+2+3 (baka baka baka bakata), but that's also not quite right if you actually feel the flow. It's also not exactly the same duration eights. It really feels like a free flowing pulse (at whatever the 4/4 tempo would be), with a hiccup, almost like 4.333/4.

Master of Puppets has the same sort of feel going on. Chugging on 4/4, and then a lurchy measure of truncated 3/4 (like 2.5/4 and change). It doesn't feel "5/8-y" to me at all. It's fundamentally not on the meter - it's a groove. Much like non-Western tone systems don't map squarely onto 12 equal tones (or even 24). It's just a different schema.

I don't know if it was a conscious or subconscious choice, or if it just "sounds sick, man", but I feel like the solid 4/4 pulse that gets you headbanging, and then a measure which just gets yanked out from under, really invokes the feeling of someone who doesn't have control, who is having their strings pulled.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aksak



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