"You'd be really hard-pressed to listen to something today and not be able to at least find four bars of it that's completely derivative of something else." So says super music producer Mark Ronson, and so agrees Charlotte electronic act Dirty Art Club, who samples thousands of songs, sounds and pop culture snippets in his music.
"It's basically going down these rabbit holes to find this and that, and it'll lead you to something else."– Dirty Art Club
Interview Highlights:
On the purism of some samplers who only use records:
I think purism is kind of limiting and irrelevant to making something bigger. You’ve basically pigeonholed yourself into just using records.
On where he sampled music from:
As a teenager, I would use records from my Dad’s collection. I [also] remember he had a friend who saw what I was doing, and he gave me a stack of probably 200 records and I just went from there.
On the art of sampling music:
I think that there comes a point of unnecessary athleticism almost where, it’s like you’re trying to outdo somebody by chopping something up more than necessary. I get it if you’re trying to hide the source of a song, but really when it comes down to it, it’s all just about what sounds good at the end of the day.
On choosing to sample a song:
If I sample a song and I think the original artist would not be happy with it or just be like, “That’s not even cool, I don’t even like that.” If I felt like that, then I feel bad about using it and I don’t. If you didn’t do it any justice, then what’s the point?
Music featured in this #WFAEAmplifier chat:
Dirty Art Club - “Pulp”
The Chi-Lites - “Have You Seen Her”
Gloria Walker - “Love is in the Air”
MGMT - “Kids”
Bill Withers - “Grandma’s Hands”
Dirty Art Club - “Soul Eater”
Dirty Art Club - “Sayonara”
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