The riff in <a href="https://laurieanderson.bandcamp.com/album/big-science">From…

The riff in From the Air sounded like it had groups of three and two eight notes packed into a four-beat measure (much like the break riff in Seek and Destroy), but when I tried to count it out, I started to feel like it was actually in 7/8.So I reassembled it in NanoStudio (with a cheesy synth that you can at least hear well), and confirmed that it’s in 4/4, with 3-2-3 groupings of eight notes. The thing that made it sound so complex for me is that the snare drops at the beginning of the second group (on beat 2.5) but not at the beginning of the third group (which starts at beat 3.5). Instead it lands on beat 4. It’s very economical subversion!