I was working on a "group" project in a group ful of people who act like they are doing work, but aren't doing anything. The assignment is to create a soundscape that 'captures the essence' of an emotion. I was assigned the emotion surprise. I need to know what kinds of rhythms do this, and possibly a song that gives a great example.
Hmm, the only thing that comes to mind is "Subject Name Here" from the Portal soundtrack. Have a listen.
Antikythera Mechanism by BT. Fast forward to about the 6 minute mark, the song starts to get some tension and then at 6:30 it releases. I liken this to tension but it could also reflect well on a surprise, a change of rhythm and tone.

The whole song in itself is a pretty good example too, since it starts out mellow and as it progresses the tones shift back and forth as if there was a war or something. At the 6:30 mark, the tone of the song shifts entirely from being mostly calm with harsh undertones to being erratic and strong with undertones of a calm symphony.

I remember there being a music video to this song but can't find it. I'm pretty sure it was on the CD, surprised no one has ripped them onto YouTube yet.
A fun thing about this sort of task (that is, art with a defined theme) is you can make things up and as long as you can make a convincing-sounding case (or a sufficiently pretentious-sounding one) nobody can reasonably claim you're wrong.

For instance, I like some of the playing with tempo in Emergent One (starting around 01:48) and you could make a case that a structure like that is surprising in some fashion. From the artist's mouth:
Quote:
yep... Barber pole tempo manipulation to make it sound like it's continually slowing down. As the pitch is rising, you fade in one an octave lower, and fade out the one that is rising. Rinse, repeat.
With this tune, it's the same (but lowering rather than rising) with tempo. As it's slowing down elements that are double time come in, and then it simplifies just before the downbeat again.


Those who know my taste in music well will recognize that I'm quite fond of Comaduster, which I think supports my point here- I started at "this seems relevant" and made up a (admittedly bare-bones) case for "this is surprising as requested."
  
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