Everyone is saying they read stuff here and there.
I'll post the three official comments about "Mantra"
1) Blair Blake
Q: What is that droning sound on the song "Mantra" on the Lateralus CD?
A: Lots of people have asked me about this. It is one of the following: A) Tibetan monks chanting in a building in Amsterdam that’s famous for its acoustics. B) The pet Siamese cat of an illustrious band member. C) A silverburst guitar played through a Moog synthesizer (which in turn is processed by an Eventide Harmonizer. D) The sounds (demons?) one hears on a Creed LP played backwards.
(From the Tool Newsletter, Decmeber 2001)
2) Maynard James Keenan
In last year's X-mas issue, you gave away the source of the drone on Mantra before I had you change it to a multiple choice question.
(From the Tool Newsletter, October 2002)
3) Maynard James Keenan
...where MJK stated for the first time in public ("a treat for the Japanese fans," he says) that the track "Mantra" is the sound of him squeezing one of his Siamese cats. The cat made such a weird noise that he immediately recorded this, played it real slow and made a track out of it.
(From Japanese magazine Buzz)
Isn't it a bit hypocritical to call me a dumbass for supposively making a rude comment to someone eles? My intentions were not to degrade or make fun of anyone, I sacarcastically stated " That's not funny", and then, " I was not talking to you". I apologize again.
At my brothers recording studio where he works, we wacked Mantra into the player there and screwed around with the speed, If you use a professional mixing program you can hear the sound of his cat ( I think its called Eon, Ion ), because if you are just using Windows Sound Recorder to play it back, you can only increase the speed of sounds in certain blocks, i think by 5 or 10 percent.
But as to what the songs meaning, did you ever think that maybe they just wanted to put the sound in because its weird and cool! They dont always have to have meaning in EVERYTHING that they do :P
But in the tour just before Schism was about to be played, we had a five minute intermission with the normal speed sound of it, I immidieatley new what it was. Id love to get my hands on those visualisations they had playing on the jumbo screens i nthe background. The best one was the Grudge one, with the gooey man running at the screen. Made me go all tingly.
i agree with 44&2 when he/she states that it could just be a cool sound, not every thing has to have a reason. especially when as fans we are looking for every detail every little sound or word to have some special meaning, sigmond freud (spelling) said once sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
"MANTRA
Q: Are the drones from Manta from the first n64 version of Zelda?
A: No. As I’ve said before, the drones come from a good friend of Maynard’s - a blue-eyed, mischievous friend.
BMB"
Originally posted by EVERYONE The track = cat, end of story (blah blah blah)
Ugh... I'll say this one more time...
There are TWO DISTINCT OVERLAID TRACKS on Mantra. One is the 'droning' sound, the other is the echo-sounding one on top of the droning. I'm absolutely convinced the word being said and distorted and echoed is the word 'LOVE', and that Maynard's cat's droning in the background is of no significance.
If you're not convinced of this, then you haven't listened to the track enough times, or in the right setting, or you didn't know what to listen for.
Use headphones.
Tune out the droning.
Try to make out the word being repeated.
Ten minutes spent reading about groaning cats and demon cats being skinned and Tibetan monks moaning the word "love" repeatedly and higher-pitched moaning echoes of lower-pitched groans.
Then a stray cat right outside my window starts yowling in a fight with the next-door neighbour's dog. At 12:11am.
At the moment, I'm so freaked I don't think I ever want to listen to Mantra again.
...basically descirbing the "om" syllable as the "mother of all mantras" (i.e. voice of God). Alex Grey also describes this symbol in his "sacred mirrors" collection.
__________________ "I opened my eye and there we were."
Originally posted by My_Akrasia Ten minutes spent reading about groaning cats and demon cats being skinned and Tibetan monks moaning the word "love" repeatedly and higher-pitched moaning echoes of lower-pitched groans.
Then a stray cat right outside my window starts yowling in a fight with the next-door neighbour's dog. At 12:11am.
At the moment, I'm so freaked I don't think I ever want to listen to Mantra again.
Well damn... very useful link, thank you. "Om" definitely sounds like it fits, too. =) At least you didn't mention the damn cat!
Alright, I have a music program on my computer that lets you speed things up at very specific rates and I've been listening to this for a while on different speeds. Starting on normal speed and then making it about 2 seconds faster each time. I've realized a few things. Keep in mind these are just my opinions.
1 - There are two definite sounds. One is what people think may be the 'cat' and one is what people think is the word being repeated
2 - There is no word being said. There is, however, a sound being repeated (other than the sound that people think is the 'cat'). At all the speeds (2 second intervals) between 10 seconds and 30 seconds, it sounds like a regular guitar note. Like a string being plucked. Actually, at first it sounds like 2 strings right in a row, and then to 1. In this pattern:
1-2, 2, 1-2, 2, 1-2, 2, 1-2, 2
You can't really even hear these when the song is played at normal speed
3 - At no speeds does the OTHER sound really sound like a cat at all. I'm down to about 10 seconds right now and it's already too high pitched to be a cat making any sort of noise.
It definitely doesn't sound like a guitar or any other synthetic sound that I've ever heard. However, at around 16 seconds (of total song length) suddenly it sounded exactly like a dog whining. The whining sound is repeated 4 times or so, just like the series of guitar notes are repeated.
If you speed it up to 5 seconds you lose the guitar sound and the other sound is too high pitch and fast to ever be a cat. Since it's repeated so many times you don't want the entire song to be 5 seconds long. That's just not how fast it was recorded.
Anyways, that's all I can come up with. If you want the program tell me and I can try to send it to you. You'd be amazed at the differences just between 2 seconds worth of speed...
