January 2010 Mixtape: No Rights... (Side Two)

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.

January 2010 Mixtape: No Rights Given Or Implied (Side One)

As I stated in a prior post, this month's mixtape is essentially my private soundtrack to a project I hope to begin sometime this year. I don't mean to be a tease, but I will share information about it only when things begin moving forward. This mixtape is a little different from previous ones I've posted though, as it serves a dual purpose, the second being my want to assemble an introductory compilation to different styles of sampling and the forms of music that use it in great detail rather than the occasional soundbyte or lifting of a melody. Not to say that those uses of sampling aren't legitimate or should be considered wrong, but I'm more concerned with the creative recontextualization of previously recorded material, which means pre-existing content can be altered in such a way that it won't necessarily represent the original source recordings and in it's new form cannot be said to be overly representative of the original sources, or in layman's terms, it doesn't rip-off anything. There will probably be a second volume of this compilation, and if there is enough interest I will definitely pursue this further.

Unlike a lot of my prior mixtapes, almost everything here is sourced from a lossless recording. Because of that, I've made a point of posting this mixtape as two separate downloads in the highest quality MP3s possible. Please make sure to download both sides so you get all seventeen tracks. Side Two should be live at some point Tuesday, Wednesday morning at the latest.


The Unheard Music January 2010 Mixtape: No Rights Given Or Implied (Side One)

01 Dickie Goodman - Mr. Jaws
Dickie Goodman, along with Bill Buchanan, can safely be labeled the first artists to use sampling in popular music, although their releases are usually considered novelty recordings. Their singles featured stories where a reporter would interview an important figure (Batman, aliens, Jaws the shark, etc.) and that figure's answers would be provided via soundbytes from then popular records. Goodman and Buchanan did incur the wrath of the artists they sampled and were brought to court, but a judge decided in their favor stating it was clear the records were parodies and not taking income from the artists being sampled.

Sadly, Richard Dorian "Dickie" Goodman took his own life on November 6, 1989. He was fifty-five years old. R.I.P.


02 Negativland - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (1991 A Cappella Mix)
If only the world had been as kind to Negativland as they were to Goodman and Buchanan. To put it simply, U2's label, Island Records, sued Negativland for copyright infringement over their U2 EP, claiming it was an attempt to confuse customers and that it illegally sampled U2's original recording of the song in question. This is an incredible story, one that books have been written about and has been discussed in film and other outlets, so rather than rehash something in great detail that will take far longer to write then you'd probably like to read here, I'm going to direct you to the wikipedia reference for this event, as it will give you the low-down quickly and point you in the right direction if you'd like to learn more. Oh yeah, Casey Kasem sounds like a dick.


03 Girls On Top - We Don't Give A Damn About Our Friends
Richard Philips is best known as Richard X, producer and remixer for artists such as Kelis, Sugababes and Nine Inch Nails, but before becoming an in-demand producer, he released limited edition singles as Girls On Top. All the Girls On Top releases are considered mash-ups or bootlegs, tracks that combine two or more songs to create a track all it's own. While tracks that combined several songs had been around for quite a while in one form or another, Girls On Top, along with Kurtis Rush (aka Erol Alkan), The Freelance Hellraiser and others helped legitimize the trend in the early 2000s. We Don't Give A Damn About Our Friends, which combines the vocal from Adina Howard's Freak Like Me and the music from Tubeway Army's Are "Friends" Electric?, was arguably the most successful of the bootleg releases, becoming popular enough that it was re-recorded by the Sugababes using the Tubeway Army beat with Mr. X getting a production credit and a paycheck.


04 Ice Cube - Jackin' For Beats
Ice Cube isn't generally known for deep production, but this Bomb Squad produced track, recorded during the era of Cube's collaborations with Public Enemy and their production crew, is a true exception. Cube flows beautifully over a track made up of other people's beats, all the while explaining that he'll take your beat if he likes it, no matter who you are. The funny part is, despite the braggadocio, all samples were cleared on this track and the amazingly long list of credits made sure everyone involved, directly or not, got paid.

Jackin' For Beats is often looked at as the start of a trend with rappers where they take someone else's track and rap over it, most often without asking permission. Because of this, most of the tracks rarely receive official releases and are relegated to mixtape status.


05 Eric B. & Rakim - Paid In Full (Seven Minutes Of Madness)
Coldcut are the responsible parties for this classic remix, having been contacted by Eric B. & Rakim's then label, 4th & Broadway, to provide this remix. Eric and Rakim were not initially thrilled by the remix, but it's success helped to eventually change their opinions.

Coldcut started off as a hip-hop and dance-oriented production crew, creating their own cut-ups similar in style to Double Dee & Steinski's Lessons as well as club-centric records like Lisa Stansfield's People Hold On. Back in the cut-up vein here, Coldcut's 1988 remix of the Eric B. & Rakim classic introduced much of the world to the heavenly vocals of Ofra Haza and stretched the simple original well over twice it's length, all the while featuring scratches, cuts, samples from speeches and instructional records and all kinds of madness. Truly a classic in hip-hop as well as creative sampling.


06 Steinski - The Motorcade Sped On
Steve Stein, better known as Steinski of Double Dee & Steinski, gained his initial fame for the duo's groundbreaking Lessons, but afterwards went solo with the intent to release a cut-up record all about the assassination of JFK. Not the most commercially sound idea, but certainly a fascinating one, with just as fascinating a story behind it. Steinski attempted to clear the samples from CBS but was met with a cold stare, leading his label, Tommy Boy Records, to issue it as a promotional-only release. All of this led to the record gaining a reputation just as powerful as the Lessons, while being just the opposite of those three classics. Both records made you think, but rather than dance, The Motorcade Sped On made you learn and remember.


07 De La Soul - Eye Know
Not the most complex record here or the one featuring the most samples, but a great example of Prince Paul's ability to combine disparate parts and turn them into a catchy tune. From De La Soul's debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, that album is often considered the East Coast equivalent of the Beastie Boys' West Coast classic, Paul's Boutique. Unfortunately for Paul and De La though, they were sued by classic surf-rock group, The Turtles, for a minuscule sample in a brief instrumental on the album. A hefty fee was paid, and while it's their fault for not clearing the sample, one has to wonder how opportunistic The Turtles and their lawyers were over this exceedingly small bit of music that doesn't borrow any vocals or melody from the source. Sadly, copyright law hasn't been updated to appreciate the difference between blatantly ripping something off and using it in a new context.


08 Beastie Boys - Hey Ladies
The Beasties, The Dust Brothers and Matt Dike changed the game forever with the release of Paul's Boutique. They sampled so much and in such depth that you could argue the art of sampling had met it's ultimate act of creativity. In reality it hadn't, but it was certainly a major evolutionary step. I've said far more about Paul's Boutique in previous posts so if you need more from me, please examine my earlier posts, but what you should really do is get Dan LeRoy's book all about the album's creation and, if you haven't heard it yet, go buy the album immediately! Don't hesitate, it's totally worth it!



Come back Tuesday (or early Wednesday) for Side Two!