Andre 3000’s new album titled “New Blue Sun” is his first album in almost 17 years. This album is composed of 8 tracks of only instrumental woodwind compositions with no rapping or lyrics.
The Night In Hawaii When I Turned Into a Panther...
The song we will be diving into is the the third track on this album. The title is pretty long, but it describes an incident where I’m guessing he was vacationing Hawaii and “turned into a panther” as he describes, and can’t control making purring noises. In the song we’re greeted with a lovely flute instrument sound and later we hear the purring sounds mentioned. Throughout the song there’s drums, but the main instrument we hear is mainly this flute. I did some extra research to try and figure out what particular flute is being played, and I found out it is a wooden double flute. There were different answers as well, but that’s the closest one that was closest to the picture displayed on his album cover. During this song, Andre uses animal noises. I got a natural feeling from this, like if I were to sit out in a jungle habitat I would hear noises like this song. I heard a rattle that could represent snakes or hissing sounds. There was also a gong that was played a couple times throughout the song. But, like previously stated the main focus of this song was that beautiful flute. There was a lot of improvisation, mostly the flute just doing its own thing, but not to the point where it throws off the whole sound. The drums maintain a steady tempo throughout the song. There were points where the drum and flute were corresponding with one another. I know at one point of the song the drum and the flute were playing off of each other which sounded nice. Andre’s goal was to make music with his flute, and go with the winds, and that is definitely what he did in this song. The flute was a light and airy sound, and closer to the end of the song, around seven minutes in, Andre began to make wind sounds with this voice. Just blowing in a way a soft but airy wind would blow. It was a great way to guide the listener into what the artist was trying to convey. I believe this work was beautifully made. His talent on that flute was absolutely wonderful, and the expressive ways he performed throughout this song was incredible. From the rattles, to the wind from the flute, the gong, the drums, and the wind effects he made with this voice, all just interrelated with each other so beautifully.
