Side Two for your listening pleasure!
The Unheard Music January 2010 Mixtape: No Rights Given Or Implied (Side Two)
09 DJ Shadow - Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt
At the time of Endtroducing's release, DJ Shadow was said to have constructed an album of nothing but samples that sounded like it was performed by a full band. That description holds true today. Building Steam..., the album's first track after a brief introduction, builds the mood for the entire album, brimming with paranoia, mystery, sadness and depression, but remains gripping regardless, holding one captive until it's finale, then requiring countless re-examinations to study every bit of minutia in an attempt to understand how one could create something so captivating from so many completely unrelated parts.
10 The Timelords - Doctorin' The Tardis
Take the theme from Doctor Who, a classic sports anthem, tons of samples from the aforementioned show, a club beat and an old police car named Ford Timelord, put them all together and you have a giant hit record from The Timelords, aka The KLF, aka The JAMMS, aka 2K, aka two guys with more aliases than you can count. Not containing their deepest collection of samples but definitely one of their biggest hits, Doctorin' The Tardis is a great example of The KLF's ability to take whatever they enjoy and make it their own. For a more detailed example of this, check out their debut album, 1987 (What The Fuck Is Going On?), which was deleted for containing tons of samples, none of which were cleared. Actually, all of their albums have been deleted, all by their own hands when they left the music industry in the early nineties. You can download a large collection of their now no-longer available tracks here, here, here, and here, all at The Unheard Music.
11 Girl Talk - Smash Your Head
Gregg Gillis gets far too much credit for being a sampling genius, but what he understands better than most is how the right records can work together like jigsaw pieces in a puzzle. No, he is definitely not the next Steinski, but there isn't another Girl Talk to be certain, no matter how many extended mash-ups someone with a facebook page might create. Most of Smash Your Head isn't groundbreaking, but the combination of Elton John's Tiny Dancer with the rap from The Notorious B.I.G.'s Juicy is brilliant, and there is plenty of that brilliance to go around throughout Night Ripper and Feed The Animals, both of which are available for free download and purchase at illegal art's website. It's not for everybody, but if you're looking for an instant party, look no further than Girl Talk!
12 John Oswald - Brown
John Oswald doesn't consider what he does sampling, he instead calls it "plunderphonics", which is to use a recognizable source in an altered fashion, as long as it remains recognizable. Kind of complicated, yes, but what Mr. Oswald does is simply mind-bending. Take for instance this track, Brown, a survey of James Brown's career and some of the works that sample his recordings. At a breakneck pace, Mr. Oswald examines the horns, the shouts, the beats and their various mutations, not making a song to dance to but something that will grab you by the balls for certain. You should definitely visit his wikipedia reference for more information on Mr. Oswald's career and releases. His career-spanning compilation, Plunderphonics 69/96 is available for download via iTunes and Amazon and I would suggest it's purchase to anyone who wants a detailed survey of his works. You can also download the original version of his plunderphonic album right here at this site.
13 Danger Mouse - Dirt Off Your Shoulder
Danger Mouse's initial claim to major fame is his mash-up of Jay-Z and The Beatles, better known as The Grey Album. I'm sure most people know all about it so I'm not going into detail, but you can read more about it here and if you haven't heard it yet, do a google search and download it with the quickness. As for Dirt Off Your Shoulder, it is, in my humble opinion, the stand-out in a collection of stand-outs, with DM taking The Beatles' soft and loving Julia and chopping it into a Timbaland worthy club banger.
Despite it's online availability, most copies of The Grey Album in circulation aren't from terribly high quality sources. With that in mind, I will eventually be posting a very high quality rip here from an original disc sold briefly through DM's website. In case you're wondering, this track is taken from that superior quality copy.
14 The Avalanches - Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life
The Avalanches are an Australian hip-hop crew known for their intensely dense mash-ups. Unlike Girl Talk though, their attitude is less jigsaw and more kitchen sink, finding interesting ways to combine just about any record they find. Some may argue that there are better tracks to display their talents with, and they would probably be right, but Tonight... is an excellent example of their more subtle moods, something which isn't often displayed in sample-based music.
Precious little has been heard from The Avalanches since the release of their sole full-length, Since I Left You, in 1999, but rumors abound that 2010 is the year The Avalanches will return with their long-awaited follow-up, supposedly finished and awaiting final sample clearances. Until then, you can visit their official site, get Since I Left You if you haven't heard it yet, and grab their amazing Gimix mixtape which is featured at their site as well as here.
15 Cassetteboy - Fly Me To New York (feat. DJ Rubbish)
Br forewarned, this track may offend many, but it's a joke and one of many that the relentlessly merciless Cassetteboy make at the expense of anyone that enters into their worldview. That said, how many people can make a 9/11 joke by sampling Frank Sinatra's catalogue? Bitingly hilarious, to the point that you may be angry with yourself while laughing. For more, check out their amazing The Parker Tapes (which just so happens to be available here at this site! sometimes I feel like a whore) and just about anything else in their discography
By the way, just in case anyone would make any ridiculous claims, the views held in Cassetteboy's Fly Me To New York are not held by the author of this website. That said, the track is meant to be a joke, albeit a dark one, so don't get too bent out of shape.
16 Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five - The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel
Not much needs to be said about Grandmaster Flash or his Adventures, other than this track is the impetus for much of what has become the turntablism scene and was recorded live on three turntables. Kick ass!
17 Concept 1 - 01:02 VR
Richie Hawtin isn't known for sampling, although that isn't to say he doesn't experiment with it from time to time, although the credit for this track goes primarily to Thomas Brinkmann.
In 1996, Richie Hawtin started a mail-order program where subscribers would receive limited edition 12"s each month of new Hawtin recordings under the name Concept 1. The style of the recordings was minimal techno and their limited issue made them very collectible, leading to their eventual reissue, sometimes in truncated form, on the commercially available 96:CD compilation. Alongside that disc's release though, Mr. Hawtin issued 96:VR, a collection of re-workings courtesy of Thomas Brinkmann and his dual-arm turntable system. With the tracks being played with two needles at the same time, new rhythms and patterns emerged, creating much deeper tracks.
While this isn't sampling in the traditional sense, I feel this track and the whole of the 96:VR compilation is a great example of creative recontexualization and definitely uses pre-existing content in an altered sense to bring about a new work. If you enjoy this, hunt down a copy of 96:VR and it's source versions, 96:CD, and prepare to be taken aback by the beauty in the hard, dark and cold minimalism of it's amazing tracks. Kudos to Mr. Hawtin and Mr. Brinkmann.
