Feb 152012
 

Space Ghost Purp, why do you keep sampling trains?

I can’t get that out my head. Purp’s whole thing musically is based on a recreation of an old school 90′s lo-fi sound. Not tape manipulation, but manipulating music on a computer, I suppose, to make it sound as if it was played from an old cassette tape.

Pierre Schaeffer manipulated tapes, though. In 1948 he made his first experiment with musique concrète – experimental music made from manipulating tapes – by slowing down and speeding up the recording of a train, thereby making it seem that it moved slower and faster. By manipulating the tape, you are manipulating the listener’s perception of reality.

Recordings of trains continues to fascinate… and it is a pretty great sound… similar to the classic air horn sample in dub reggae, which has found its way into rap mixtapes in later years.

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