Genre-bending experimentation is nothing new to composer/producer/pianist Marc Soucy, whose career spans two decades. But with his latest extended composition, “The Paradigm’s Shift,” the creative boundary has been pushed a little further than ever.
This 7-minute song is a sound odyssey, fusing classical, electronic music, polyphonic scoring, and rock in a very distinctive way. Soucy builds a wide-open soundscape of oscillating pads and textures that swell and contract in the stereophonic field. The dense sonic world he created borrows from ambient and new-age genres but keeps its edge firmly avant-garde.
The crystalline beats complement the glinting pads and evoke the feeling of wonder amidst these abstract textures. There are moments when Soucy uses a volume automaton to make it sound like the noises are emanating from afar.
From this, you get a glimpse of Soucy’s multi-faceted influences converging: gentle orchestral notes emerge, imparting subtle neoclassical elements. The layered strings provide a harmonic foundation and color, maintaining the ethereal atmosphere of the work. Their phrasing suggests influence from film score traditions, even remaining unconventional in its execution.
This eclectic combination of electronic, orchestral, and New Age elements renders a scintillating, however surprisingly colorful, aural landscape. It’s to Soucy’s remarkable composing abilities that such varied components blend organically.
The guitar is beautifully handled, as the strings insulate the introduction of distorted tonality. The crisp timbre of the guitar injects the piece with a sense of intensity, which it builds over the escalating interplay between strings and electric instrumentation.
The chiming lines become much more layered and propulsive. Treble-heavy plucks join the arrangement, adding an apparent pleasant rhythmic space. By now, Soucy has somehow merged his work into a multi-dimensional instrumental epic. In this case, the density and dynamic nature of this arrangement may indirectly refer back to film composers such as Hans Zimmer and Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross.
With “The Paradigm’s Shift,” Marc Soucy has cemented himself as a genre-defining auteur. Soucy shows virtuosity within the realms of composition, sound design, arrangement, and production. But what I found truly magnum opus-esque is that Soucy forges a unique artistic vision through the synthesis of various influences. It’s one of those tracks that needs deep analysis and repeated listening to explore the newly discovered layers.
Where does one even begin in trying to articulate quite how much I love Marc Soucy’s new track “The Paradigm’s Shift”? From the very first ambient textures that wafted in, this song had me entranced. I found myself getting fully lost and immersed in Soucy’s lush, expansive soundscapes.
I got completely washed away by these otherworldly vocals and soft, polyphonic embellishments that break through during the early movements of the track. It sets this sense of the grand and awesome, yet it leaves you small while being cosmic all at once. Do yourself a favor and treat your ears to 7 minutes of pure euphoria by streaming “The Paradigm’s Shift” now.
