"Sampledelia"

[Slothrop]

Firstly, I thought 'sampledelia' was a much broader term than what we're discussing here, and would include a lot of early ardkore and so on. In any case...

Interesting thread, I won't defend the beatz'n'samples crew but I think you have to remember what that 90s thing was all about. Along time ago everyone went clubbing in a big way most weekends and these were the kind of instant rhythms churned out for people pre/post club. Was it meant to last? Of course they sampled stuff,>nick it, slam it together, feel the groove then move on. It was right for the time and probably sounds dull now that everyone can do it and mashups are everywhere. Essentially it was a vibe music, did it make tall claims?

I think it's one of those styles that isn't incapable of doing interesting things and occasionally people pushed it in a particularly psychedelic or weird or unusual or just plain infectious direction and got something special, but it's a fairly easy genre in which to knock out something that'll make stoned goatee-wearers nod their heads so there's an enormous amount of dreck that the good stuff got completely lost in. And even if you do find something good, the fact that it keeps reminding you a bit of shit stuff might well put you off.

And out of interest, are we counting things like M/A/R/R/S and early Coldcut here, or just the later, smoother, more tasteful stuff?

 

[dwaggin]

I didn't get that weekender thing from my side during the 90's, somewhat this would have to do with my location on the other side of the pond, but really I was surrounded by computers and headphones -- I'm a nerd. I was upset with a lot of 90's samples of 60's or 70's records -- I listened very closely to the production and it sounded very obvious where the the seams were. There were a few of these I thought were quite good. I think because I was still admiring the production skill. Until I heard them enough times then they became unlistenable. I couldn't come close to enjoying DJ Shadow, his albums seem so obvious that it makes me nausious. I think the most obvious great sample records are 3 Feet High And Rising, Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld, and Chill Out.

 

[elgato]

my opinion is that with a decade or so more, and a better sense of context, a lot of more 'straightforward' sample-based music will be percieved in quite a different light. zeitgeist innit. i think that the inclusion of de la and its heritage is particularly questionable.

also, slightly off-topic, but still, im gonna speak up in favour of ninja tunes, i dont care how unfashionable it currently is as a label. in my opinion they released some incredible music, that doesn't deserve to be generalised away amongst the half-arsed zeitgeist-riding material that made up some of its catalogue. its ridiculous that its become such a dirty word, a synonym for blandness, i think it does them a disservice

amon tobin
dj vadim
hextatic
antibalas
super numeri
cinematic orchestra
kid koala

not to mention big dada's sick catalogue...

 

[dwaggin]

Those are two great singles.

EDIT: I mean M/A/R/R/S and Rakim and Coldcut.

 

[Gabba Flamenco Crossover]

I hear the people slagging off ninjatunes - coldcut are smug arseholes, and it did all turn into a bit of a beardstroking fusion-with-computers hell by the late 90s. But when ninja emerged in '94 it was really fresh - at the height of flaccid intelligent techno and progressive house, hip hop had gone G-Funk and, apart from jungle, sampladelia had completely fallen off the radar.

The early ninja & mo'wax comps arent solid gold but they all have some great tunes on - Junkie's Bad Trip & Motorbass Get Funked Up are bad, bad tunes... joining the hiphop dots in a way that no-one had done before that point.

The DJ Vadim stuff on Ninja is really good too - hip hop tracks built out of samples of doors creaking, etc.

But I think it's the superior engineering that makes the Avalanches different to everything that came before...

Nah. It's not about engineering cleverness. The best sampladelia is hammered together like a rusty old car with bits sticking out all over the place. If you spend as long as the Avalanches did honing samples it's so easy to lose the feeling in the track, and what I've heard of thier stuff certainly suffers from that.

What about the late 80s/early 90s lineage of sampladelic rock? The Young Gods, MBV's Loveless, american stuff like Cop Shoot Cop, Girls Against Boys, plus all of Al Jourgensen's bands? Maybe rock's last chance to escape the dead hand of retro & be comtemporary?

 

[the undisputed truth]

sixtoo-duration project = niiiice

edit : sixtoo myspace

 

[michael]

it's weird though that the word organic is used as sampling is anything but 'organic.'

If you have a look at the first post, I think swears meant that the sampling of traditional instruments off records was a means to inject organic sounds back into a kind of music that might have been otherwise too modern sounding for the indie kid strawman.

This is all really a snob thing, eh? This music isn't tasteful enough for those who are into "real dance music" or something. Similar how distasteful happy hardcore, with its sped-up Bonnie Tyler tracks and whatever else, is to most dance afficionados. Not saying I don't share swears' reaction, just that I think it's a bit funny, cos usually most people on here are kicking against tastefulness. I'm actually quite a sucker for things being refined and rarefied and all of that.

I kinda want to start a thread about how much I loved trip-hop (as in Mo'Wax bluntedness, those Electric Lady Land comps, Vadim, Skylab, etc. ... not thinking so much 3 bands from Bristol who later got called that) because I see that as really different from both the cafe end of Ninja Tune and the jokey big beat stuff.

 

[francesco]

I loved so much in early '90 sampladelia that i don't care if is not anymore fresh and, like any other genre (like all the others my love of the '90: shoegazer, hardcore techno, drum'n'bass, glitch) at the end of the '90 staled and became shit (not secondarily because, after the innovators, every idiot jumped in the wagon) and now it's in the backlash years (wait another 5 years for revival and compilations of classics). Not that i listen to much of those records today, but there are total pop music classics there, no question! Little Fluffy Clouds, In/Flux, Turtle Soup, Beat This, Skylab, Flying High...... come on don't be silly !

 

[swears]

....Though interestingly a lot of black music appears to have shifted away from sampling towards synthetics.

Yeah, and it's weird how white UK dance music hasn't really followed suit. If acts like The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy were influnced by the breaks-led production of The Bomb Squad and Ultramagnetic MCs, then where is the Timbaland and Swizz Beats style UK stuff? (Outside of 2step and Grime, of course.) I mean you could have a whole label of instrumental Neptunes-knockoffs alone.

 

[daddek]

If you have a look at the first post, I think swears meant that the sampling of traditional instruments off records was a means to inject organic sounds back into a kind of music that might have been otherwise too modern sounding for the indie kid strawman.

This is all really a snob thing, eh? This music isn't tasteful enough for those who are into "real dance music" or something.

I kinda want to start a thread about how much I loved trip-hop (as in Mo'Wax bluntedness, those Electric Lady Land comps, Vadim, Skylab, etc. ... not thinking so much 3 bands from Bristol who later got called that) because I see that as really different from both the cafe end of Ninja Tune and the jokey big beat stuff.

Shadow, Vadim, Krush, these were hip hop producers, straight up. Geoff Barrow (portishead), Attica Blues, Tosh and Kudo (skylab).. their primary influence and inspiration too was hip hop.

The only reason they are sometimes used in the same breath as coldcut, moloko or nightmares on wax is because dance/electronica music magazines lumped them all together under the bastard umbrela of trip hop"". Dance music press dictated the terms of this false genre in a sense, writings dozens of articles on it, portraying it as post-clubbing chill out, come down music. Dance music labels started releases "100% trip hop" CDs. Shadow and Krush became filled under "dance/electronica". And it all became an ugly, incoherent mess which the original artists couldnt get away from fast enough. And now, dance music nuts like Swears remember it as "sampledelia", an unpleasant blip in the dance music lineage.

I think history deserves to remember artists like Krush with more respect, tbh. Incidentally, the Japanese hip hop scene is fascinating right now. Check this article, watch for Baku, and track down the "Scatching The Surface: Japan" DVD

 

[low band]

were would we be without Depth Charge?

33/45?

 

[michael]

Shadow, Vadim, Krush, these were hip hop producers, straight up. Geoff Barrow (portishead), Attica Blues, Tosh and Kudo (skylab).. their primary influence and inspiration too was hip hop.

Yeah, I was thinking that, but swears already roped in straight-up hip-hop producers like Prince Paul and the Dust Brothers, so I don't know what the fuck's going on with this thread, really...

Regarding "the bastard umbrella of trip hop" tho, there's an intro on an UNKLE 12" where they've got an answerphone message from "Josh" (gotta be Shadow, right?) to James Lavelle where he's all "trip-hop, baby! trip-hop in '95!" so it's not like they weren't party to it to some extent... but man, yeah, any comp or whatever labelled trip-hop was a disaster, ne.

Did you know Tim Goldsworthy, the not-James Murphy half of DFA, was one of the original UNKLE guys? UNKLE were kinda something before they got to the point of releasing an album. Not great, but a few good moments, and the above 2x12" was hot shit. Picked up a Major Force West comp cheap and it's basically Tosh & Kudo + Goldsworthy dropping in. Some good bits.

Heard some DJ Baku, should investigate more. There's a lot of nasty, cold, glitchy instrumental hip-hop stuff going on around Japan at the mo. Glad to see Cappablack put an album out, even if it's a bit poo.

 

[hamarplazt]

Where is Req placed in all this? I'd suppose that he is usually seen as part of the sampladelia thing, making sample-heavy, old skool hip hop-referencing beat collages on Skint, but to me he sounds very much like the beginning of hauntology more than anything.

 

[hamarplazt]

Also: Overcasts "3PM Eternal", now that's sampladelia done right.

 

[mms]

Where is Req placed in all this? I'd suppose that he is usually seen as part of the sampladelia thing, making sample-heavy, old skool hip hop-referencing beat collages on Skint, but to me he sounds very much like the beginning of hauntology more than anything.

yeah req did some amazing stuff, but the opposite of smooth trip hoppy stuff, all the wires poking out, his album on warp is WELL overlooked, but it properly needs listening to, it's like a hafler trio of hip hop or something, just visible as music.
he was on skint yes, but he didn't fit on them, best thing on that label though.

the other rather good overlooked guy was palm skin productions, did some awesomely strange, creaking abstract stuff on mo wax.

 

[noel emits]

By the way, should it not be Sampladelia? Or is there a distinction?

http://www.ccru.net/swarm1/1_motion.htm

http://www.helsinki.fi/~jjmvanha/stalking.htm

 

[the undisputed truth]

then where is the Timbaland and Swizz Beats style UK stuff?

davinche and part 2 ???

 

[swears]

By the way, should it not be Sampladelia? Or is there a distinction?

I googled "sampledelia", "sampledelica", and "sampladelia". The first one had the most hits. I don't think there's a standard spelling.

To all the defenders of various individual artists: I think the first wave of this stuff in late eighties hip-hop definately had it's merits. I even liked a couple of tracks on the first DJ Shadow album (although the time of The Private Press I thought he was just repeating himself). There's a lot of stuff that uses samples that's great of course, it's just that a lot of cut 'n' paste stuff is so formulaic.

 

[mms]

I googled "sampledelia", "sampledelica", and "sampladelia". The first one had the most hits. I don't think there's a standard spelling.

To all the defenders of various individual artists: I think the first wave of this stuff in late eighties hip-hop definately had it's merits. I even liked a couple of tracks on the first DJ Shadow album (although the time of The Private Press I thought he was just repeating himself). There's a lot of stuff that uses samples that's great of course, it's just that a lot of cut 'n' paste stuff is so formulaic.

hmm private press is a totally different album from the first one.

i think you go a bit ott with your beef on things sometimes swears, maybe it's time to work out what it is you really like and move outwards.
dissing sampling perse is like dissing arms and legs.

 

[swears]

The best use of a sample ever is the "Genius of Love" steal in Maraih Carey's "Fantasy".
You should just stick to one sample per song like Diddy.