Thursday 25 April 2013

FOUR SAMPLE HEAVY TRACKS BY INDEPENDENT ARTISTS

FOUR SAMPLE HEAVY TRACKS BY INDEPENDENT ARTISTS


And by heavy I am talking quality not quantity usage of samples by the following artists:
 
 SKYRIDER FANTASY BAND
FOCALIZED
FALLING STAR
ASSAFSPECTOR

steady on the left


Thanks to their good work on Artistserver, Reverbnation, and Soundcloud I can present four tracks (below) that are bringing the attitude of sample usage which was so prominent and famous - audaciously in the late 80s, early nineties - back to the fore.  

In my spare time I scour around the internet looking for musicians that are bringing the beat, the energy back from the era of my adolescence by their technique of capturing a moment or in other words by their technique and imagination of....
SAMPLING




1# TRACK: SUBMARINE
ARTIST: FOCALIZED
WHY?  Listeners.  If you listen from 2.17 onwards after the steady build up within this  sonic journey you will hear about a 5 second sample from the 1989 Beastie Boys track 'Car Thief.' It is the wind-down pitch down opener from the beastie track which is layered with vocals from the boys in the background.  That Focalized used it for a track entitled Submarine I found creative and apt. In that his song is submerging enough anyway and it sounds as if there are workers deep below looking for signal of life or something on a radar. And so when the Car Thief sample comes in (1989 was the the year where almost everyone: De La Soul, EPMD, Public Enemy - were rinsing samples before it became a legal problem) it fits in groove with the satellite receiving genre breaking sample heavy attitude that was prominent and championed in 1989 and legacy still resonates today.


2# TRACK:V.I.P (Victory In Peace)
ARTIST: FALLING STAR





WHY? Fallen Star did something that blew my mind out of the water when I read it. They sampled their own work from 30 YEARS AGO (1983), and layered it with new instrumental arrangements (2013) to form an entirely new song.The song VICTORY IN PEACE to me channels a bit of Aruca's by Medicine or Soon by My Bloody Valentine in my humble opinion. It is an entirely instrumental experimental track and I hope that the artist keeps it on artisterver for long. To me the track is a story in itself, (we are informed by the artist that the 30 year old bass guitar was recorded live on a repaired tape cassette).  Falling Star is bringing back the dead, they are evoking a spirit of a different age for the new NME readers to step to. But it is their own work even before the aforementioned shoegazing tracks. Therein lies the soul in the track, in that the sound, the harrowing live guitar just cannot die, not in its age, not in this digital age, and Falling Star is proving there is yet something to do with their own work from ages ago. Or do you think EVIL DEAD is the only artwork that can successfully resurrect itself from 30 years ago? I haven't watched the remake so I can't answer that but from what I hear it is a matter of taste, alas I digress.



3# TRACK: HOLD THE LINE (ELECTRO MOROCCO REMIX)
ARTIST: ASSAFSPECTOR:
 WHY? I already included this track in my POST: BATTLE OF SOUNDCLOUD REMIXES: HARLEM SHAKE VS HOLD THE LINE - PAST VS PRESENT. And I found that this remix ticked all the boxes in my opinion when it came to; Mixdown, Ideas, Overall Identity of the remixer and most importantly the Cut Up And Editing applied. This track for me tipped the balance for Hold The Line to win the remix battle, and I also believe it was the biggest overachiever from the six tracks I selected. I say this because it took a 1 second sample from the end of the vocal line that says 'vibrate like a Nokia.' It took the 'A' at the end of Nokia and turned it into a dancehall vs bhangra lick shotting freestyler phasing cocktail of a remix. I didn't believe my ears at first so even went on YouTube to see if the Morocco remix is a semi-official Diplo sanctioned remix or just a fan of the track doing what they want. And it turns out to be the latter. So a very big well done to Assafpsector from 3 or more years ago, I hope they have still got that beat in them today. 


steady on the right


4# TRACK: ON THE EDGE
ARTIST: SKYRIDER FANTASY BAND (ARTHUR HUSK)



 http://www.artistserver.com/artist/song.cfm/a/33010/tid/27491/SKYRIDER_FANTASY_BAND

 WHY? Finally we enter the realm of Arthur Husk, otherwise known as SKYRIDER FANTASY BAND.  And to experience Skyrider is for me to enter their realm. I have already mentioned the impact the track Deep Inside had on me. Why I included On The Edge is not just because I kept returning to it via Reverbnation or because of its Big Beat Chemical Brothers In Dust We Trust groove. But because it brought back the - 90's what's up homie conversation interlude within the track - that I loved listening to from way back, and haven't seen or heard it done with such fun of late.  Skyrider almost treats the conversation like another instrument amidst his improvisational band member multi-contributing music universe.

Was the conversation originally customised to sound like 90's wannabe homies or taken from a film, song, and or rap. I don't know, but I feel it adds a dimension to On Edge that if I were listening to it at a rave I could imagine fellow ravers mouthing... 'yo whats up home,' and all that before the beat drops. Which would be a nice feat considering the track is faster than 90BPM, and the last vocal reference sample to the 90s I heard was a crowd pleasing one second Hammertime on Caspa and Rusko five years ago.  Listen to Cypress Hill's A to the K to get a better picture of what I mean.  Skyrider's watercolours palette overlaps once more to rollercoasting effect, and as the other sample says; ' Im high as hell.' No lie.

RaeBurnz

1 comment:

  1. Thanks Ray for all of the hard work and research you do in order to put together so many well written reviews. Thumbs up to you.

    ReplyDelete