"The Sounder" was a beat Cass Browne made backstage on the band's first tour on his laptop with Damon Albarn, bassist Junior Dan and the tour's in-house MC's, underground rap group Phi Life Cypher. Damon decided it was good enough to take to Dan The Automator and Kid Koala to make into a full fledged studio track and released it as a b-side to "Rock The House".
The song's beat is a typical hip hop beat with elements of psychedelic and Indian raga music. Cass Browne adds layers of drums to the beat including a standard drum kit, a drum machine and various pieces of Indian percussion. Damon then added an acoustic guitar riff, layers of sitars and various synthesizers. Junior Dan also added a dub bass line which doubles the synth bass Damon laid on the track giving the track a heavy bass sound. When it was taken to the studio, Kid Koala added some scratches on to it at key moments.
Damon Albarn had approached Phi Life Cypher to be on the band's first record, and they added their raps to early demos of both "Clint Eastwood" and "Starshine". Phi Life Cypher's rapping style (which in my opinion isn't that much different from the usual brag raps we get from mainstream rappers, despite their underground reputation) didn't gel well with the tracks so they weren't used. Phi Life Cypher finally got their dues paid however when Del The Funky Homosapien couldn't tour with Gorillaz due to the fact that he was touring his other project, Deltron 3030. So, Damon asked Phi Life Cypher to go on tour with them, rapping on the songs "Clint Eastwood" and "Rock The House". On "Rock The House", Phi Life Cypher used their unused verses from the "Starshine" demo as well as some new rhymes to make for a funky live version. They decided to add these verses on to the beat Cass was making. Their raps on the track aren't anything special in my opinion, it's not a bad track, it just feels so effortless compared to the experimental Indian style beat Damon and Cass came up with. The spotlight of this track is Damon's vocals, whether it be his falsetto sung chorus or monk style chanting in the background.
The band's first tour was plagued by difficulties. In order to bring the characters to life on stage, they played behind a screen in a move inspired by one the underrated craftsmen behind Public Image Ltd. pulled at their live shows in 1981. The screen projected visuals made by Jamie and an elaborate light show was done in order to show the silhouettes of the band playing behind the screen (including Noodle's voice actress Haruka Karouda who wore Noodle's signature headset and mimed playing an electric guitar). The character's voice actors would often talk to each other as well, giving the illusion that the characters were actually behind the screen. People didn't understand the concept and griped at the lack of real stage presence (one guy even chanted "show yourselves" between songs at their first show). Also due to the short set time of only one hour and no encore, some people felt they didn't get their money's worth. When the band got to America with an improved screen set up that let you see clearly the silhouetted band members behind the screen, Junior Dan was arrested for drug charges leaving them without a bass player for the first show. The tour was ahead of it's time, now DJ's and EDM artists use screens and visuals as the main aspect of their live shows and they get admiration for it. So, "The Sounder" was a fun and simple track made by a tight yet frustrated band to get over their stress on the road. Despite my opinion, it's a track that primarily features Cass Browne, who has been an important part of Gorillaz in both the musical aspect and the aspect of the character's story, so it is still an important piece of the Gorillaz discography.
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