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Post by jk on Apr 10, 2024 4:17:08 GMT -5
Sampling is so widespread these days that I feel it deserves a thread of its own. The clever title is lifted from my hobby forum. The track that prodded me into action was Saint Pepsi’s "Need U Tonite", first heard on my Vaporwave comp of choice. According to its wiki, Vaporwave is "defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, 1970s elevator music, R&B, and lounge music from the 1980s and 1990s." The song it samples (plunders is perhaps a better word) is "I Need Someone Tonight Tonite" by A Certain Ratio: |
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Post by jk on Apr 11, 2024 15:39:52 GMT -5
One of the earliest instances of sampling has to be Brian Eno and David Byrne's 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which dates from pre-digital days when a loop might involve wrapping a tape around a chair leg. "Regiment" was one of two tracks on the album to sample the voice of Lebanese singer Dunya Younes (spelt Yunis in the album's liner notes): Although Byrne and Eno took care to clear the samples with the label that released the album her vocals had been sampled from, and paid for the sampling accordingly, Ms Younes only found about the use of her voice on the album years later. The issue was eventually settled amicably out of court (see below). This is the original recording, "Abu Zeluf", from Music in the World of Islam, Volume One: The Human Voice (Tangent TGS 131): www.theguardian.com/music/2022/aug/11/better-late-than-never-how-brian-eno-and-david-byrne-finally-laid-a-musical-ghost-to-rest |
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Post by jk on Apr 13, 2024 3:56:14 GMT -5
The Avalanches' debut album Since I Left You (2000) is one of the most kaleidoscopically colourful records ever made, largely consisting of literally thousands of samples. Don't watch any of the cheapo videos made to accompany the album's singles -- they are an insult to the music. All you need is the album cover.  "Electricity" brings together the disparate likes of operatic vocalizing by Australian soprano Antoinette Halloran and samples from US rapper Blowfly's "Rapp Dirty". It all works wonderfully well. To quote commenter louise_rose, "I remember when this was a hit, it now feels like a nostalgic echo of the fairly carefree times that came to a sudden end in September 2001." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Since_I_Left_You |
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Post by jk on Apr 14, 2024 4:33:14 GMT -5
I have loved the sound of the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir ever since hearing a track from their first comp on the radio and being completely stumped as to its provenance. Members of this choir have performed on at least one album by Kate Bush ( The Sensual World, 1989). The most bizarre use of their music occurs at the start and end * of "Home", a track by The God Machine from their 1993 debut album Scenes from the Second Storey. I only know this because a colleague lent me the album. Part of me was horrified; the other part thought it was a great joke and showed the lads had a sense of humour. "Vocal on 'Home' by the Voix de Bulgares [sic]", as the album liner notes delicately put it. "Home" was actually a hit single in the UK, peaking there at #65 in January 1993. You have been warned!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scenes_from_the_Second_Storey* Maybe it's been worked into the body of the song at odd moments as well (I don't possess decent headphones) |
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Post by jk on Apr 16, 2024 9:30:32 GMT -5
The Beta Band’s self-titled album (1999) is one of my few successful purchases made purely on the strength of a review. The band famously hated it, describing it as "f***ing awful", with time constraints taking most of the blame. I love it -- it's all over the place but that's a big part of its charm! Its most blatant use of sampling is on the second track, "It's Not Too Beautiful", whose "hypnotic space-rock groove" Pitchfork describes as being stopped "dead in its tracks with a destabilizing sample from John Barry's Black Hole soundtrack": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beta_Band_(album) |
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Post by jk on Apr 26, 2024 5:33:32 GMT -5
Following up a lead, I stumbled across the Houston hip hop scene, which is all about s l o w i n g t h i n g s d o w n. The central figure in this movement (or maybe lack of movement) was the short-lived DJ Screw, best known as the creator of the chopped and screwed DJ technique. From his album 3 'N the Mornin'(Part Two), this is "Smokin' And Leanin'" (featuring Botany Boyz). Wonderful sludgy stuff: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Screw |
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