http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnC8Hm8GxNc
This is the best sample I've ever heard. I'm going to say it again: this is the best sample I've ever heard. In case you missed it, the words 'best sample' back in that first sentence were a link to the sample itself. Here it is again.
It's brilliant because it sees the source material and edits out the bad parts. The song itself quickly becomes too busy and incoherent, with bass and chorus and drums. But the sampler (here, Sha-Liek the Engineer) takes only the good part, like an intelligent hunter who knows they don't need to use every part of the animal. The lyrics of the rap song, while good, are nowhere near as impressive as the sample.
Like, dang.
Showing posts with label Samples. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Samples. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Rock the House — Gorillaz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRlmM88zzbY
I recently posted about Nujabes' Thank You, which also samples John Dankworth: here, it's much more obvious. I'm more taken aback by the different contexts and how they change the sample. The former makes it sound very jazzy, smooth and laid-back; the processing on the latter makes it sound more funky and up-beat.
I have lots to say about Gorillaz — the popularization of sample-based music, brilliant lyrics and a subtle multimedia experience which never quite came to fruition; a race-blind hip-hop; the combination of what seems like kids' animation with adult content; and, in particular, the role of the band Blur. I think I just said most of it, though, so... yeah. Enjoy this weird, weird video.
I recently posted about Nujabes' Thank You, which also samples John Dankworth: here, it's much more obvious. I'm more taken aback by the different contexts and how they change the sample. The former makes it sound very jazzy, smooth and laid-back; the processing on the latter makes it sound more funky and up-beat.
I have lots to say about Gorillaz — the popularization of sample-based music, brilliant lyrics and a subtle multimedia experience which never quite came to fruition; a race-blind hip-hop; the combination of what seems like kids' animation with adult content; and, in particular, the role of the band Blur. I think I just said most of it, though, so... yeah. Enjoy this weird, weird video.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Thank You (feat. Apani B.) — Nujabes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnba1fKRNZo
I've written about Nujabes in other articles, but never about him directly — he has a distinctive sound, but he doesn't write his lyrics and he doesn't write the instrumentals — he samples. As such, he is a curator; it's easy to attribute the music to him, but it's much easier to look at the individual artist (incidentally, Apani B., who I've never heard of before, absolutely kills it here), and his samples of Gypsy Queen — Part Two and Modesty Blaise (which I guarantee you know), while brilliant for their selection, are nearly unedited; how much credit can I really give him? I love his output, I love the music he puts out, but it's... is it creation? Apani B. wrote the lyrics, which are what I listen to with intention; the instrumentals are large bands full of people, written and arranged and produced by someone else uncredited; what did Nujabes do? Not to say I could do it, but... what work of his can I talk about?
But I do love his choices — his choice of vocalist, his choice of sample — and that's enough, I think. Everything about the creative process is choices. If I praise another artist, it's for their choices — in lyric, instrumentation, all the same. He's just a content aggregator, a modern musician. Perhaps undeserving of the same claims to talent, but certainly not to fame.
I've written about Nujabes in other articles, but never about him directly — he has a distinctive sound, but he doesn't write his lyrics and he doesn't write the instrumentals — he samples. As such, he is a curator; it's easy to attribute the music to him, but it's much easier to look at the individual artist (incidentally, Apani B., who I've never heard of before, absolutely kills it here), and his samples of Gypsy Queen — Part Two and Modesty Blaise (which I guarantee you know), while brilliant for their selection, are nearly unedited; how much credit can I really give him? I love his output, I love the music he puts out, but it's... is it creation? Apani B. wrote the lyrics, which are what I listen to with intention; the instrumentals are large bands full of people, written and arranged and produced by someone else uncredited; what did Nujabes do? Not to say I could do it, but... what work of his can I talk about?
But I do love his choices — his choice of vocalist, his choice of sample — and that's enough, I think. Everything about the creative process is choices. If I praise another artist, it's for their choices — in lyric, instrumentation, all the same. He's just a content aggregator, a modern musician. Perhaps undeserving of the same claims to talent, but certainly not to fame.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The Lamp Is Low — Morris Nanton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFfl_PVXD30
Jazz is an echo chamber. Come here and be alone with your thoughts; get them moving, get them changing, pick up another idea or two. Settle in and listen and ponder; get up and dance; change and change and change.
The Lamp Is Low is from the 1930s; apparently there are lyrics? It came to me ass-backwards; through Nujabes's sample of the Laurindo Almeida rendition, but the above 1967 rendition is the one that tickles me the best. Explore on WhoSampled; do research; trace your own path backwards in time through the history of this Jazz standard. Listen for it in old movies; let it pop into your head during tests; lose yourself in its tone and rhythm. This is what music is for.
Jazz is an echo chamber. Come here and be alone with your thoughts; get them moving, get them changing, pick up another idea or two. Settle in and listen and ponder; get up and dance; change and change and change.
The Lamp Is Low is from the 1930s; apparently there are lyrics? It came to me ass-backwards; through Nujabes's sample of the Laurindo Almeida rendition, but the above 1967 rendition is the one that tickles me the best. Explore on WhoSampled; do research; trace your own path backwards in time through the history of this Jazz standard. Listen for it in old movies; let it pop into your head during tests; lose yourself in its tone and rhythm. This is what music is for.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
All Bad Ends All — The Books
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw7pR_MFk5M
The Books are the closest thing to a true audio collage I've ever heard. This music would be art house music; it would be indulgent and masturbatory, if it weren't for the fact that it's good. It's listenable and enjoyable and creates patterns and riffs from the chaotic sampling of a trillion obscure cassette tapes, accompanied by acoustic guitar. It breaks in and out of genres, cuts out partway, but it is not produced. Afuken is produced samples, but The Books sound organic. This is computer-made music, and it reflects the advent of technology in music — but it does not demand attention to the production. It stands alone, the way a novel should, be it written on typewriter or Microsoft Word. I think that is a virtue.
The Books are the closest thing to a true audio collage I've ever heard. This music would be art house music; it would be indulgent and masturbatory, if it weren't for the fact that it's good. It's listenable and enjoyable and creates patterns and riffs from the chaotic sampling of a trillion obscure cassette tapes, accompanied by acoustic guitar. It breaks in and out of genres, cuts out partway, but it is not produced. Afuken is produced samples, but The Books sound organic. This is computer-made music, and it reflects the advent of technology in music — but it does not demand attention to the production. It stands alone, the way a novel should, be it written on typewriter or Microsoft Word. I think that is a virtue.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Deck The House — Akufen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7nNF0FJ3-I
Microsampling! This crazy fucker samples millisecond bytes of the radio and chains it all together, and somehow it works, like a collage of sound. It's just long enough to make out timbres, maybe what instrument; never what song or station or voice is being sampled. It's very disconcerting at first listen — which this is. This is new music, and I'm judging on first listen.
Moreover, the effect that the samples give is — well, hard to follow. It jumps around, and once your ear gets used to the technique, it's fascinating. If you've ever (I can proudly say I have) been really tired and stared at carpet fibers for five minutes, you'll see that little everyday things have incredible detail in them, and that you can always pick one thing and keep focusing. So this music is a fractal — it rewards listening on every level of attention — at the measure level, and the structure level, and the sample level. Each tiny bit is perfect, and sometimes they overlap, or cut out, or have big gaps of silence, and it's fascinating.
Microsampling! This crazy fucker samples millisecond bytes of the radio and chains it all together, and somehow it works, like a collage of sound. It's just long enough to make out timbres, maybe what instrument; never what song or station or voice is being sampled. It's very disconcerting at first listen — which this is. This is new music, and I'm judging on first listen.
Moreover, the effect that the samples give is — well, hard to follow. It jumps around, and once your ear gets used to the technique, it's fascinating. If you've ever (I can proudly say I have) been really tired and stared at carpet fibers for five minutes, you'll see that little everyday things have incredible detail in them, and that you can always pick one thing and keep focusing. So this music is a fractal — it rewards listening on every level of attention — at the measure level, and the structure level, and the sample level. Each tiny bit is perfect, and sometimes they overlap, or cut out, or have big gaps of silence, and it's fascinating.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Titanic Vandalism — The Go! Team
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDMGXZL6-f8
I've written before on the idea of genre mixing — a relatively modern idea — and The Go! Team is a wonderful example of that. It's garage rock full of sampling, but there are chants, hip-hop, soundtracks, classical, guitar rock, even Bollywood. In short, every track is a high-energy theme song to some terrible 1980s action movie, and it's fun.
Moreover, the production is lo-fi — so lo-fi that it's often impossible to tell what's been performed by one of the band's three drummers and what's been sampled from an old movie. So is the timbre a nostalgic homage to the 70s, or an actual copy from it? Is sampling a form of homage? I know lots of these tracks contain samples, but at a certain point it doesn't matter, and I think The Go! Team reaches that point. Finding out now that one of the riffs was a sample wouldn't be elucidating, it would be frustrating. Even if it's sampled, it's still original.
I've written before on the idea of genre mixing — a relatively modern idea — and The Go! Team is a wonderful example of that. It's garage rock full of sampling, but there are chants, hip-hop, soundtracks, classical, guitar rock, even Bollywood. In short, every track is a high-energy theme song to some terrible 1980s action movie, and it's fun.
Moreover, the production is lo-fi — so lo-fi that it's often impossible to tell what's been performed by one of the band's three drummers and what's been sampled from an old movie. So is the timbre a nostalgic homage to the 70s, or an actual copy from it? Is sampling a form of homage? I know lots of these tracks contain samples, but at a certain point it doesn't matter, and I think The Go! Team reaches that point. Finding out now that one of the riffs was a sample wouldn't be elucidating, it would be frustrating. Even if it's sampled, it's still original.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Seville — Luiz Bonfá
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAny1bIApcA
Sampling is an essential part of music, but it's often frustrating. There's a little twinge of rage in discovering, years later, that a song which you loved for a particular riff and whose artist you gave credit for its genius was sampling the riff from another, older artist — as if we gave credit to someone for imitating Shakespeare, but forgot about Shakespeare entirely.
Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know is a great example. Luiz Bonfá's Seville (above) is the original, a brilliant 1960s instrumental from the Brazilian jazz/folk scene. Am I mad? Yeah, a little. But I also firmly believe that sampling is an integral part of music — modern and not. So I have some cognitive dissonance on the matter.
Luiz Bonfá's The Shade Of The Mango Tree was also sampled for Nujabes' Lady Brown — but I'm less mad, as Nujabes made a career off of sampling wonderful jazz and adding beats and guest rappers. Still, I wish more of the music I knew came with citations.
Sampling is an essential part of music, but it's often frustrating. There's a little twinge of rage in discovering, years later, that a song which you loved for a particular riff and whose artist you gave credit for its genius was sampling the riff from another, older artist — as if we gave credit to someone for imitating Shakespeare, but forgot about Shakespeare entirely.
Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know is a great example. Luiz Bonfá's Seville (above) is the original, a brilliant 1960s instrumental from the Brazilian jazz/folk scene. Am I mad? Yeah, a little. But I also firmly believe that sampling is an integral part of music — modern and not. So I have some cognitive dissonance on the matter.
Luiz Bonfá's The Shade Of The Mango Tree was also sampled for Nujabes' Lady Brown — but I'm less mad, as Nujabes made a career off of sampling wonderful jazz and adding beats and guest rappers. Still, I wish more of the music I knew came with citations.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Unwind Yourself — Marva Whitney
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym7IOodKeWI
I like rap. No, no apologies. I love rap. But normally I love rap for the poetry of its lyrics; I'm a fan of De La Soul and The Pharcyde and Das Racist and Aesop, for their lyricality. It's the largest modern source of poetry there is, and it's relevant and clever and unique.
I was listening to History of Rap, and they played the song Let Me Clear My Throat — DJ Kool. What caught me here weren't the lyrics, it was the sample. ?uestlove and The Roots were imitating (live) a sample used in the 1996 song (which was recorded live) which used a sample from The 900 Number — The 45 King, a mid-80s sampling artist, who took a sample from the instrumental behind Marva Whitney's Unwind Yourself, a 60s funk track.
And yet the original shone through, translated three times. It hadn't lost its rhythm, it hadn't lost its tonality, it hadn't been desecrated in any way. I wonder for how many other oft-sampled riffs the same is true.
I like rap. No, no apologies. I love rap. But normally I love rap for the poetry of its lyrics; I'm a fan of De La Soul and The Pharcyde and Das Racist and Aesop, for their lyricality. It's the largest modern source of poetry there is, and it's relevant and clever and unique.
I was listening to History of Rap, and they played the song Let Me Clear My Throat — DJ Kool. What caught me here weren't the lyrics, it was the sample. ?uestlove and The Roots were imitating (live) a sample used in the 1996 song (which was recorded live) which used a sample from The 900 Number — The 45 King, a mid-80s sampling artist, who took a sample from the instrumental behind Marva Whitney's Unwind Yourself, a 60s funk track.
And yet the original shone through, translated three times. It hadn't lost its rhythm, it hadn't lost its tonality, it hadn't been desecrated in any way. I wonder for how many other oft-sampled riffs the same is true.
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