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Sometimes I think too hard about sleep token lore. And like I’m kinda convinced sleep at least sometimes is representation of death. Like especially in like vore and even in arcadia (song).

And like have i joined a cult worshiping death? Maybe.

Would anyone who knows me be surprised that this happened? No. It’s incredibly on brand.

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Some of my favorite Vesselisms in this album are “(r)it’s like you’re dangerous to me” in dangerous and “no lightling (instead of lightning) in a bottle” from infinite baths.

How would you transcribe it? Are there different interpretations depending on how you’d want to do it, or is there a sure fire way to write it out?

I only know a little bit on how to use the IPA (I studied more phonetics and pragmatics) so you’re like the premier source for all these questions I hope you dont mind 😭

Sorry for taking so long to respond. I was in an area with no wifi or cell service for a bit and once I saw it I wanted to have a well thought through answer. So answering in backwards order from your last part to your first. 

Feel free to ask as many questions as you want! I might not always respond immediately, but it makes my day or even my week when I get an ask! Please ask! It's enrichment in my enclosure!

Hypothetically in a world where everyone's sensory perceptual system worked exactly the same and language and dialect of origin had no impact on speech perception there would be a limited set of ways to IPA transcribe a single speaker's single speech episode. But that is not actually how either speech or speech perception works; speech sounds are not just the acoustic signal they are how our brains interpret the acoustic signal. So because your accent and language or origin changes how we all hear things our transcriptions can be different but equally correct. If you want more tips on transcribing yourself I can give those because it's a fun way to dissect music. The other factor to transcription is level of sensitivity If I am just getting across the basics I might not use diacritic marks or mark stress. I might choose which marks I use based on what I am trying to communicate as important in what I’m hearing.

So given that a basic transcript of lightling would be /lɑ͡ɪtlɪŋ/ but as an american english speaker I want to emphasize the accent I am hearing and how I think his tong placement is higher than mine: [lɑ̝͡ɪtlɪ̝ŋ].

4. In the “it’s” there are even more choices it could be as simple as /ɹɪts/. But to me the co-articulation is what's important the [ɹ] and [ɪ] are smoothed together. So its more like [ɹ͡ɪts]. I think its even subtler than that is sounds closure to [ɹɪts] like the [ɹ] is just barely there. Once I add in how the vessels accent changes the vowels it becomes [ɹɪ̝ts]. Side note: this question made me listen to dangerous with linguist ears on and it's fascinating. There’s a lot going on in that one. Vessel’s stops vary wildly and I want to sleep with a pillow of his voiceless fricatives. They are so fluffy.

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Chokehold analysis

So I have done some analysis to figure out exactly why the end of phrase /d/ sounds in chokehold during the verses are perceived as /d/ sounds instead of /t/ even though they are unvoiced. So to start here is the /d/ in “made” and “flood.”

The vertical line in the middle top of the /d/ in the spectrogram is the stop burst. Note that it lines up with higher amplitude at the wavelength that correlates with the amount of air being released. In this case it’s atypical for the placement in the word. English speakers tend to not release as much air after it stops that are not at the beginning of words and are not voiced. But the other thing happening here is that voicing stops at the end of the vowel. This is not typical for a /d/ this matches a /t/. 

When we measure the time between voice offset and a burst of the stop it is about 478 milliseconds which is a really long time for speech. Once again this should be a /t/. Acoustically this sound out of context looks more like a beginning of word /t/ than an end of word /d/. Which then creates a number of questions about why we perceive a /d/.

I looked at the /d/ in flood to double check my work. It's very similar. In this case we can see a reduction in amplitude where Vessel begins to devoice and then a similar drop when voicing is fully faded out. Notably even without voicing formants are present both before and after the stop to create an unvoiced /ə/ sound. Once again acoustically this should be a /t/.

A possible explanation of the perceptual /d/ sound can be found by looking at the /t/ in “accident” 

The /t/ we have that is perceived as a /t/ has an even higher amplitude meaning even more air released or aspiration. The most surprising is that the /n/ sound that the /t/ follows is also not voiced. These two help explain what is happening. This /t/ sound is extreme in its distinctions between /d/ and /t/. And this distinction level causes the other /t/ sounds to by comparison be more ambiguous between /t/ and /d/ even when acoustically they are not. Added with semantic context that a /d/ sound would make more sense in those places we can perceive a /d/ in those places.

So is Vessel doing this on purpose or not? I have no idea. The aspiration is a choice. The devoicing is a choice. That is purposeful. The further differentiation between the /t/ in accident. I am not sure if that is something he has full awareness of. But what I am sure of is that it’s fascinating. Thank you for coming to my ted talk :)

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Sometimes I do a thought experiment where I think if I could tell Vessel one thing what would it be?

I go through my bad poems. My weird speech science. How meaningful the songs are to me and i think none of that is that important or that beneficial to him. Like he knows his songs mean things to people. He might care about the speech science. But I think I would want to tell him about a dream I had several years ago where a giant worm serpent god thing ate the sun. I remember waiting for the light to go out and for it to get cold but there was time because of the distance between the sun and the earth. And like there was this simultaneous tranquility and dread with and inevitable end of the world.

I don’t know I feel like that’s the thing I would tell Vessel about. I think that would mean something to him.

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ə̞ wɑnə bi joɹ pɹəvɑ̝͡iːɾə

ganə ju in sɪl̹k lɑ̝͡ɪk ə spɑ̝͡iːɾə

ɹo͡ʊl̹ ə dɑ̝͡ɪ ju bɜt ɑ̝͡ɪm ə ɹɑ̝͡iːɾə

joɹ ɑ͡ʊɾə ʃɜl joɹ sikɹɜt̚ ɪnsɑ̝͡iːdʰʌː

because someone suggested it.

I want to note that these are choices. like especially his pronunciation of insider to not rhyme by using a stop instead of a tap is a deliberate choice.

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Possessed by an idea: transcribing Vessel’s pronunciation using the IPA

I will fucking do it. I’m just an American and all my ipa is very American so I will either have to do research or use a lot of diacritic marks.

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Okay we gotta talk about the phonetic choices of provider. Like that shit is deliberate. Once again Vessel cannot be trusted with diphthongs he a becomes too powerful. He seduces the listenener with sexy diphthongs and its so dangerous.

But anyway its interesting because Americanizing accents for music is so often encouraged and so his not lowering his tongue for that "i" in provider and it's rhymes is very noteworthy espectially paired with a following derhotacized syllable. he leans into his accent in a beautiful way.

Sleep Token often gets compared to Hozier and this song is deliberately leaning into it. The choice to lean into a native accent with hightened tongue for that particular diphthong while having that instrumentation at the start is evoking Hozier. But then the derhotacized schwa signals the listener that this isn't Hozier. this isn't and Irish accent, its an english one. Like how Sleep Token isn't anything it evokes it's its own thing.

I have more thoughts, but this is what I will say for now. The phonetics of sleep token is fundamentally interesting. One of the many reasons Vessel is such a talented vocalist is because he plays with his mouth sounds. and I love him for it.

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Oh god yess the eclipse!! It almost sounds super phlegmy but in the best way 😂 he full on pushes out extra air to make the cl into almost a little hiss.

I do not know the official terms for anything I am trying to say I am just someone that sings themselves and is fascinated by accents and therefore mouth sounds.

As soon as I find a vocals only version of that song I'm going to run it through my software because I have two different theories about what he's doing.

He has combined the /k/ and /l/ sound into one sound by lateralizing the /k/. this would explain the extra air. it would essentially be letting air escape from the sides of his tongue

he is not using voice on the /l/ so we hear the wooshing of air stronger because their is no voicing.

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I would pay money just to have a clear video where you can see his mouth and throat while he sings because I am so curious about some sounds.

Because some of the little clips that do exist confuse me sometimes because in theory I know what mouth shapes go with what sounds but sometimes he just does something else 😂

Vessel uses dark magic to make mouth sounds. I am convinced of it. It sometimes breaks the rules of how mouth sounds works. its fascinating and I need to know more. I want that video too anon. I want to use an electropalatograph on him while he says "eclipse" in look to windward. I want to hold his throat while he sings chokehold so I know which stop consonants he's voicing. I desperately want to study the inside of Vessels mouth. I NEED to make spectograms.

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It has been two years of listening to sleep token and I am still obsessed with vessel’s wacky mouth sounds. He does things with his breath, his vowels and consonants that are so deliberate that I can’t help but obsess over. Sometimes I get fixated on the fact that somewhere there are extremely high quality audio files of his vocals and yet I can’t have them. I want to run them through my software and analyze the sound waves. But instead I play vocals only YouTube videos into my computer. What good is a M.A. in speech and hearing science if I can’t get the high quality spectrograms I want. Will Ramos’s larynx is not enough for the SLP’s who like metal community. I will never be satisfied.

(This is a joke obviously. I listened to caramel. I’m not entitled to audio files. I just crave knowledge. But I respect boundaries and am happy with the amount I am given. I’m trying to say I like the new album and am going to tunnel vision on phonemes again. While also shouting out Will Ramos for participating in a YouTube video where he had a laryngoscopy)

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the teeth of god graphic novel

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the dangerous game of looking into a band

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still full of the boops you want

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One of my (many) favorite things about STumblr is how we’re all like “I’m so normal about [insert literally anything, no matter how big or small]” as if there is ANYTHING REMOTELY NORMAL ABOUT THE BAND WE ARE YELLING ABOUT. Like let’s be real we left “normal” way back when we accepted the ancient deity worship concept, yet here our asses are 😂😂😂

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I am getting absolutely ROASTED learning about autism and hypotonia lol