looking for music with sample contents as rhythm...

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I'm looking for techno or beat-based music where the sample contents forms the beat, ie the beat is build out of layers of overlapping noises, rather than from discretely triggered units of noise.

The reason I'm asking is because the main reason I'm writing my stuff is because I can find very little that sounds like it, and I want to find more.

Most sample-based music (I'm thinking hip-hop, most techno) builds beats using samples: the sample forms the start of the rhythmic element. So if you've got a sample being triggered on 1 and 3 (in 4/4) the oomph of the noise is bang on the beat, at 1 and 3. But there don't seem to be many musicians exploring the contents of the sample as rhythm. eg using the example above setting something going which doesn't have the oomph at 1 and 3 but has it at 1 and 2/3 and 3 and 5/8ths or something.

This is what I've been playing with lately. When I first got my computer and started playing I didn't have any drum samples but I did have a mike, and I discovered very quickly that you can generate practically all the percussive noises you need with envelopes and random samples. one two.

Anyway, counterexamples by Real Musicians (tm) that I know of:

SJD - Three - I was bleating about this the other day, but now I have samples so can share the greatness: uvula when the reversed voices come on - the voices go 'ummmmn, manas; (ooom nyim nyika-wanna-wum-nyim-nyika-wanna)', and the 'nyika-wanna-wum-nyim-nyika-wanna' forms a rhythm like you'd expect a shaker or hihats to make)'; James Lost - the crowd forms the rhythm; world machine - cartoon sound effects make up rhythmic interest - listen to the bullet ricochets!

Pedro does it a little bit, but again the emphasis is mainly on the start of the sample.

Also Sutekh's Incest Live.

suggest more please!

― damian_nz (damian_nz), Friday, 15 October 2004 04:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Nobukazu Takemura - "Sign"

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 15 October 2004 07:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Some Disco Inferno songs.

― Ian Moraine (Eastern Mantra), Friday, 15 October 2004 19:33 (twenty-one years ago)

So basically you're talking about using longer samples?

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 15 October 2004 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

i was trying to read over this and figure this out a bunch last night. what it seems like you're saying is you're into samples that are almost in different time signatures playing polyrhythmically with each other.

― JaXoN (JasonD), Friday, 15 October 2004 19:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Moodymann and Theo Parrish excel at this kind of move.

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Friday, 15 October 2004 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

"2/3" is an impossible meter.

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 15 October 2004 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't fully understand the question (and there's not use trying to get more technical with me, since that won't work either), but one thing that comes to mind is Steve Reich's "Different Trains," which I don't especially love, but it might be worth listening to if you haven't heard it. That may be more a case of the sample generating melody (but isn't there also a rhythm that comes with that?). Also, maybe just because I just bought it on CD, I find Psychic TV's use of samples on Live in Astoria (the CD that is roughly equivalent to the old vinyl Live at thee Circus) fairly unusual, and the "Why don't you fucking enjoy your own/why don't you fucking enjoy your own/Why don't you fucking enjoy your own fucking body" sets up a sort of counter-rhythm in the music that's pretty strong. (Lots of weird but nicely done rhythmic twists and turns in "Your Body/Only Human/Twisted".) On the othe hand, I haven't listened to that much electronic dance music, so I may have no real idea of what's exceptional and what isn't. (Anyway, this album tends to straddle rock and electronic dance, but really successfully at times, IMO.)

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Friday, 15 October 2004 21:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Jordan: Not necessarily longer samples, just using more of the sample than just the beginning of it.

JaXoN: kind of. But still tied down to a strong 4/4 sense. Like, if you've got a recording of I dunno say a construction site, something heavy being dropped, and it kinda goes "bang BANG bang b-b- b... b.. " not really following an time signature at all, you lay it over a strong 4/4 thump thump beat and tweak where it starts so that I dunno, maybe the big BANG hits precisely on beat 2 and the 'b-b- b... b..' runs from around beat 3 to the end of the bar, their timing not necessarily describing a triplet or semiquaver meter but just happening in such a way that the thump on 1 is heavily implied by them.

Hmm. Can anyone who doesn't actually make techno themselves understand what the hell I'm trying to get at?

Rockist_Scientist: Yeah, I've listened to Different Trains, it has certainly been an influence, both conscious and un-. A little too unstructured, I think, or not 'stupid' enough - I find when I listen that my attention wanders very easily, hence I can't really listen that often. Something like that with a hynotic techno beat around it would be gold, exactly what I'm thinking of in fact. As a blueprint, anyway.

I should probably go find me some Wolfgang Voight or something. He's bloody hard to find on slsk and I live in New Zealand and all of our music shops bar none suck, and cd's are obscenely expensive.

― damian_nz (damian_nz), Friday, 22 October 2004 07:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Not necessarily longer samples, just using more of the sample than just the beginning of it.

Jungle! Lots of overlapping cut-up rhythms in the 93/94 stuff. Is that what you mean?

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 22 October 2004 09:29 (twenty-one years ago)

yep, that'd be choice, just like jungle, only done with a different rhythmic pattern...

I should check out theo parrish and other stuff people have recommended really.

― damian_nz (damian_nz), Saturday, 23 October 2004 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

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