Sample connections

All roads lead to disco. Here's a few songs and their samples exposed:



Samples the Whatnauts' Help is on the way and reinterpretates the vocal line from Curiosity Killed the Cat's Name and number. There's probably quite a few other samples in there, too.



Armand and A-Trak use a genious sample of a tune from a band no one would dare to admit liking: Boney M.

I'll also leave this last disco song here. It was recently used by a very well known artist here in Finland, but I'd rather let you join the dots.



BTW, check the updated gig calendar on the left. And have a nice week.
- Peffis

Wanting to belong

Have you ever noticed, the indie kids always want to belong? I'm not saying it's a bad thing - we all need warm relationships and some acknowledgment for our being, but it's certainly well mapped territory of human condition in that particular music genre. Here's a prime example, as is a big part of Smiths' catalogue. (BTW, Diskjokke remix of the track is a starter)

But for me, now that I've joined the dark side of music called disco, where post-irony rules over all, I proudly proclaim my needs to belong to a certain Gary's Gang.



I don't know who Gary is, but if he pumped out disco hits like this, and had a dance-ready gang as his wingmen, he's a winner in my books. Call me Gary, let's wear matching jackets and do stuff at the disco.

A little sample connection; GC's Do it at the disco's sax break was transformed by mr. Oizo to this. Ah, how the French love to recycle disco...

- P-Funk

Hot & spicy

This is Karen Young performing Hot Shot. I remember Vince Aletti describing certain disco discs (that's how they called 12 inch mixes back then) as "hot, hot, hot". That description seems to fit this little spicy number especially well.



And I gotta admit I love the sassy expression of womanly lust, finding it rather liberating and simply fun.

This was BTW sampled by Daft Punk.

Have a good week everyone,
- P-Funk

Sample connection # 4

It's the biggest hit of the year maybe. Will be huge, at least in our sets.

Coma Cat by Tensnake



Samples Anthony & The Camp's - What I like



Dude knows how to work up a sample. Very summery vibe with great uplifting feeling.

- P-Funk

Covers - double up

This one's quite interesting. Paul Weller's Style Council did a cover of Joe Smooth's Promised Land just a week later the original dropped. Of course, the well-known rockers topped the original by a little known soulful, black house singer. It's all explained here.

Compare for yourself, the songs are below. I dig the original. BTW, it was covered again last year by Findlay Brown, who in turn was remixed by Pilooski and Dimitri from Paris.

Original, Joe Smooth version:



Style Council cover:



Now, what makes this whole thing a bit more interesting is this little twist: Style Council in turn was covered a decade later by Fire Island, a moniker for two UK house producers, working with Loleatta Halloway.

Style Council original:



Fire Island version:



Goes around, comes around, eh?
-P-Funk

No more Girl Talk PLZ

I confess: I'm pretty much a Girl Talk hater and if I came within a slapping range of this dude it'd smack the taste out of his mouth.



Hmmm, he only doesn't reap the credit for this whole "new mashup thing", he is also on all of the major remix/sample documents bitching about paying for sample use. Why the fuck people are so excited about this now, when everything he does now, was made better and more inventive by dj's in the 80's? Sampling from different sources has been the bread and butter of hiphop dj'ing, but when a white dude does it for all the frat partys in the States, it's suddenly not condemnable but creative? WTF?. Mashup is nothing new , it's just playing songs/acapellas on top of each other, but with less ambition and talent.

And yeah, I sure hate his guts for bringing the rock aesthetic back to dj gig game. Of course he's not the only one making a huge deal about pushing buttons to play other peoples music.



I'll shut my mouth when someone puts a decent mashup album/mix in front of me. Til today I haven't seen nothing as near as inventive, touching and atmosphere building as some of the dj mixes I bump into weekly. Some mashups are ok, though, but generally it's a lot of fuzz about nothing.

End note: If I did this kind of thing I'd be called dj Dick Talk. Maybe it's not too late to change my dj name...

- P-Funk

Sample connection # 3

I'm probably guilty of a re-post, but this is one definitely one of the best tunes of 2009 and the original video is pretty amazing. Well, I can pretty much say it has been The Revenge's year altogether.

This one's pretty public info, so don't accuse me of snitching. 'Coz I don't really play out like that.

Original:



The Revenge's rework/edit:



Not a radical rework, you could say. I can't get enough of this one, even though I'm hearing it all over the place.

- P-Funk

Sample connection # 2 (or # 3)

Can't remember which one this one is, it's been that long since I last wrote about this.

So, to remind what this Sample connection hustle is all about: I'm posting songs that sample another. As I said earlier, sampling is just one of the ways to keep old music alive. Of course, there's always good and bad ways to sample.

I guess this one is more like a bad example of sample use. Toney Lee's classic gives the vocals to Phats & Smalls' tasteless club cut.

Toney Lee - Reach Up



Soulful, uplifting, smooth. That's one amazing voice.

Phats & Small - Turn around



I find both the song and video rather boring. Why did you have to take the soul out of the original tune? I heard it also features another sample, from this. (The Change song might sound familiar because it was in turn sampled by Janet Jackson a while back)

- P-Funk

Sample connection # 4

Now, I'm a bit divided over this. Is it a good stomper or just plain trance? I'm also puzzled about the middle part breakdown - that's when you're supposed to shout drunken babble to the mic at the gigs, I suppose...



Anyway, it had a good reception at Resident Advisor so I picked it up. The main melody sample is from here:



I guess this all means that the Amin Coda's version will sky rocket at discogs. Fuck, like italo disco wasn't overprized already.

- P-Funk

Sample connection # 2

It's time to spot samples and show off.

If you'd be in a dj collective like mine, you'd know that threeways are a lot of fun. Here's a threefold sample connection, where a sampling song gets in turn sampled.



Co-produced by the great Kashif BTW. It gave the the basic hook for this little Janet Jackson number:



It's really a surprisingly fine dancefloor tune, even though Janet's not considered to be one of the serious female singers around. It was released on Damita Jo, amidst all the "Superbowl & nipple"- controversy. Anyway, it was in turn sampled by the classy Mark E (whose hypnotic mixes are well worth checking too, like this one)

Mark E - R'n'B Drunkie

"I feel like pumping 2 some old school funk". Goes to prove that just one loop is all you need, if you know your stuff. Just feel how this songs keeps on growing, so good. Mark my words, Mark E has some serious edits and songs in his back pocket just waiting to be published - you'll hear a lot more from him in a few years.

- P-Funk