The samples of Mount Shrine in his ambient works felt very in the spirit of this discussion. The sounds of rain and water, the sounds of nature, layered in with the sound of air traffic control. All sound is in the air, and with sampling we can capture these moments, and these sounds that we may not hear forever.
I discovered his music last year. He's my favorite ambient artist. Very unique sound that just takes you far away. Sad that he passed away at such a young age.
Matthew is so refreshing, sampling doesn't get enough recognition for how important it has been and its possibilities for exploring or moving music forward.....great interview thanks..
I'd take it as a sarcasm, but not as a serious statement, because all contemporary UK music and culture consists of sampling, based on sampling. What Matthew talks here is a Musique Concrete technique, rather than tool, so the "revolution" he mentions happened way before the invention of a proper digital sampler. What's revolutionary about sampling is a special form of appropriation. In this context the appearance of digital samplers gave birth to hip-hop in the same way as the appearance of tape recorders gave birth to Musique Concrete (being both revolutionary). But Matthew seems to intentionally ignore and negate the appropriation itself, which makes the whole discussion "sampler as a revolution" pretty absurd a priori.
He Says the Manifesto he wrote a few years ago, but it was over 2 decades ago, I remember where I was when I read it. As follows: THIS IS A GUIDE FOR MY OWN WORK AND NOT INTENDED AS THE CORRECT OR ONLY WAY TO WRITE MUSIC EITHER FOR MYSELF OR OTHERS. 1. The use of sounds that exist already is not allowed. Subject to article 2. In particular: No drum machines. All keyboard sounds must be edited in some way: no factory presets or pre-programmed patches are allowed. 2. Only sounds that are generated at the start of the compositional process or taken from the artist's own previously unused archive are available for sampling. 3. The sampling of other people's music is strictly forbidden. 4. No replication of traditional acoustic instruments is allowed where the financial and physical possibility of using the real ones exists. 5. The inclusion, development, propagation, existence, replication, acknowledgement, rights, patterns and beauty of what are commonly known as accidents, is encouraged. Furthermore, they have equal rights within the composition as deliberate, conscious, or premeditated compositional actions or decisions. 6. The mixing desk is not to be reset before the start of a new track in order to apply a random eq and fx setting across the new sounds. Once the ordering and recording of the music has begun, the desk may be used as normal. 7. All fx settings must be edited: no factory preset or pre-programmed patches are allowed. 8. Samples themselves are not to be truncated from the rear. Revealing parts of the recording are invariably stored there. 9. A notation of sounds used to be taken and made public. 10. A list of technical equipment used to be made public. 11. optional: Remixes should be completed using only the sounds provided by the original artist including any packaging the media was provided in. MATTHEW HERBERT 27-11-00
I'm not a psychologist. But that's definitely a red flag when you ask a guy what his favorite thing is and he responds with a disjointed 6-minute rant of pure negativity... Except when he tries to give an example of "anything" and comes up with "your daughter's bedroom"??? KENNEDY: What piece of equipment couldn't you live without? HERBERT: Sampler. It's too good. KENNEDY: Yeah... HERBERT: Now let me give you some advice. A guitar isn't original. Right now there's 20 million losers picking up a guitar. Ukraine! Manifesto! Revolution! A horse. I could make music out of literally anything - Your daughter's bedroom! A dam bursting in Ukraine. My slippers. Colonel Gaddafi's pencil case. I had a gig on 9/11, so I recorded one of the twin towers collapsing. I don't know the morality of making music out of the twin towers collapsing. EVERY CHILD HAS SEEN MILLIONS OF MURDERS BY THE TIME THEY ARE 20. We're all doomed like the musicians on the Titanic.
I thought I was the only person feeling the same while watching this strange interview. That's a typical issue with political views dominating on creativity, artistic image, transcendency. This "Sampler vs guitar" rhetoric isn't something I'd expect from a man of his age, with such a calm and intelligent voice.
@@PeterPepper93 The music is the grain of sand then? the articulation of erosion in the presence of matter? doesn't make sense because your looking at it just from a semantic point of view. Music is in its complexity a psychological response to sound. Any sound can give you the same response as music, it's how you relate to it, mostly on a emotional/psychological level. Of course music exists outside of your own personal response and you can still recognize it as music because someone else responds to it and/or told you that it is music. Music that you don't like generally sounds like that, a bunch of articulated sounds because it didn't give you that "musical" response. Which of course doesn't have to be always pleasant, even if people listen to it generally for enjoyment, because it can also come from outside of just the music itself like cultural aspects, etc. It doesn't have to be articulated by a human neither it's intension. Soundscapes can sound as music and give you the same response, any sound for that matter, which maybe more obvious at a particular moment. Musicians and composers just shape that response and make it more evident. You can say music exists inside of sound, sound as a medium for the music and for that interaction, but, it is in the end sound, not just contained by it, but a vibration, a resonance beyond a physical one, a psychological, mental, spiritual one. Sound doesn't exist just on a acoustic level, it is in it's essence music even if that doesn't appear to be obvious. You can say music is the intention to listen to sound, one that you choose to listen to or pay attention to, but then you might not get a "musical" response, like music that you don't like or it being in the background.
@@Francisco12G apparently you didn't read me correctly. I'm gonna try again. Sound is sound, whereas it has musical qualities is another subject, but sound on itself cannot be music because music implies that there are variations. If you don't agree with that, let me just argue that a note by itself is not music, might be the prolongue to music, but it's not as long as it's alone. Think about a beach where each grain of sand is a note, the entire beach would then be a very rich composition, however just isolating a note on it's own doesn't make it music
@@PeterPepper93 I understood you correctly, i was just showing that beach analogy is interchangeable. Sound varies through time and even if it is a continuous tone your perception of that tone changes through time. It's about the response you get from sound. Maybe it doesn't tingle your brain the same way as a more traditional piece of music but it is still about how you respond to it, it is your brain who makes the music and recognizes patterns etc within our time and frequency perception. As soon as you hit play or make a decision to listen to something, you just created variation. Even if it was a single note, you would be hearing sounds around you, even if you were listening to it on headphones, you would hear your nervous system, your heartbeat, maybe even breathing. Maybe you don't pay attention to it, but there is always sound around us so no sound is isolated not even from its origin and context if were to look it that way and it is constantly being modulated by others and your perception. No day is the same. True silence is only real to the deaf or as the intention of absence or absence of a particular element. Doesn't matter if it doesn't work for you. Implying that music has to be several notes or tones, or that it has to have variation in the traditional sense is a very canonic way of looking at music, which basically disregards everything that doesn't fit that view. You couldn't say the same thing about sound being music because it ties everything together. I understand what you mean by sound being a palette for the music, but the music is already contained in sound, and by that regard even in a single sound. In that analogy, the beach is already contained in a single grain of sand if you were to separate it and experience it. You might say that variation is a relation, a comparison of what played now and what played next and before, the same when you are figuring a melody on the keyboard, but as soon as you hit a note, you just created a relationship between that note and the "silence" around it. That is music.
@@PeterPepper93 You might say that music is the process of tuning in to sound, a connection which can be communication also, and that music exists while and within our own perception of it while sound exists beyond that perception. Animals for instance hear sound in a completely different way and as so music, so what we call sound, even outside of our own perception, is still in a way inside it because we can't experience it in the same way. Some sounds happen, even if not in the exact moment of hearing them, as so hearing them through echoic memory, the same response of some pieces of music to me, even if they happen in a fraction of a second. Its the response to sound. Of course this was not immediate, as music makes this response more evident. Our perception of sound is musical, and so it is music. What we call sound inside of our own limitations and the perception of it, is music.
Electronic musicians ignore where their own genres came from - DJs hand-manipulating samples via turntable, manual modulation of pitch, amplitude, delays (using fader on mixer). Language, convention - the sampler is as big an advancement in abstraction in our time as the Neanderthal flute was in theirs.
Let us know what you thought of this episode, and who you would like to see on Tape Notes next! 👇
The samples of Mount Shrine in his ambient works felt very in the spirit of this discussion. The sounds of rain and water, the sounds of nature, layered in with the sound of air traffic control.
All sound is in the air, and with sampling we can capture these moments, and these sounds that we may not hear forever.
I discovered his music last year. He's my favorite ambient artist. Very unique sound that just takes you far away. Sad that he passed away at such a young age.
Matthew is so refreshing, sampling doesn't get enough recognition for how important it has been and its possibilities for exploring or moving music forward.....great interview thanks..
Glad you enjoyed it!
I'd take it as a sarcasm, but not as a serious statement, because all contemporary UK music and culture consists of sampling, based on sampling.
What Matthew talks here is a Musique Concrete technique, rather than tool, so the "revolution" he mentions happened way before the invention of a proper digital sampler. What's revolutionary about sampling is a special form of appropriation. In this context the appearance of digital samplers gave birth to hip-hop in the same way as the appearance of tape recorders gave birth to Musique Concrete (being both revolutionary). But Matthew seems to intentionally ignore and negate the appropriation itself, which makes the whole discussion "sampler as a revolution" pretty absurd a priori.
Excellent stuff. Thanks. That’s just pulled together a whole bunch of stuff I’ve been thinking about lately.
Love to hear it!
He Says the Manifesto he wrote a few years ago, but it was over 2 decades ago, I remember where I was when I read it. As follows:
THIS IS A GUIDE FOR MY OWN WORK AND NOT INTENDED AS THE CORRECT OR ONLY WAY TO WRITE MUSIC EITHER FOR MYSELF OR OTHERS.
1. The use of sounds that exist already is not allowed. Subject to article 2. In particular:
No drum machines.
All keyboard sounds must be edited in some way: no factory presets or pre-programmed patches are allowed.
2. Only sounds that are generated at the start of the compositional process or taken from the artist's own previously unused archive are available for sampling.
3. The sampling of other people's music is strictly forbidden.
4. No replication of traditional acoustic instruments is allowed where the financial and physical possibility of using the real ones exists.
5. The inclusion, development, propagation, existence, replication, acknowledgement, rights, patterns and beauty of what are commonly known as accidents, is encouraged. Furthermore, they have equal rights within the composition as deliberate, conscious, or premeditated compositional actions or decisions.
6. The mixing desk is not to be reset before the start of a new track in order to apply a random eq and fx setting across the new sounds. Once the ordering and recording of the music has begun, the desk may be used as normal.
7. All fx settings must be edited: no factory preset or pre-programmed patches are allowed.
8. Samples themselves are not to be truncated from the rear. Revealing parts of the recording are invariably stored there.
9. A notation of sounds used to be taken and made public.
10. A list of technical equipment used to be made public.
11. optional: Remixes should be completed using only the sounds provided by the original artist including any packaging the media was provided in.
MATTHEW HERBERT 27-11-00
Amazing, thanks for sharing this!
Gonna sample this
I absolutely loved this rant. Solidarity brother!
Very smart geezer.
Matthew Herbert is the most undervalued musician and producer for twenty years running
ASK BILL BASINKSI!
that theme is so grating
I'm not a psychologist. But that's definitely a red flag when you ask a guy what his favorite thing is and he responds with a disjointed 6-minute rant of pure negativity... Except when he tries to give an example of "anything" and comes up with "your daughter's bedroom"???
KENNEDY: What piece of equipment couldn't you live without?
HERBERT: Sampler. It's too good.
KENNEDY: Yeah...
HERBERT: Now let me give you some advice.
A guitar isn't original. Right now there's 20 million losers picking up a guitar.
Ukraine!
Manifesto! Revolution!
A horse.
I could make music out of literally anything - Your daughter's bedroom!
A dam bursting in Ukraine.
My slippers.
Colonel Gaddafi's pencil case.
I had a gig on 9/11, so I recorded one of the twin towers collapsing.
I don't know the morality of making music out of the twin towers collapsing.
EVERY CHILD HAS SEEN MILLIONS OF MURDERS BY THE TIME THEY ARE 20.
We're all doomed like the musicians on the Titanic.
I thought I was the only person feeling the same while watching this strange interview.
That's a typical issue with political views dominating on creativity, artistic image, transcendency.
This "Sampler vs guitar" rhetoric isn't something I'd expect from a man of his age, with such a calm and intelligent voice.
Sound is music and no sound is isolated
Sound is not music, music is the articulations of sounds. It's like saying a grain of sand is a beach, makes no sense
@@PeterPepper93 The music is the grain of sand then? the articulation of erosion in the presence of matter? doesn't make sense because your looking at it just from a semantic point of view. Music is in its complexity a psychological response to sound. Any sound can give you the same response as music, it's how you relate to it, mostly on a emotional/psychological level. Of course music exists outside of your own personal response and you can still recognize it as music because someone else responds to it and/or told you that it is music. Music that you don't like generally sounds like that, a bunch of articulated sounds because it didn't give you that "musical" response. Which of course doesn't have to be always pleasant, even if people listen to it generally for enjoyment, because it can also come from outside of just the music itself like cultural aspects, etc. It doesn't have to be articulated by a human neither it's intension. Soundscapes can sound as music and give you the same response, any sound for that matter, which maybe more obvious at a particular moment. Musicians and composers just shape that response and make it more evident. You can say music exists inside of sound, sound as a medium for the music and for that interaction, but, it is in the end sound, not just contained by it, but a vibration, a resonance beyond a physical one, a psychological, mental, spiritual one. Sound doesn't exist just on a acoustic level, it is in it's essence music even if that doesn't appear to be obvious. You can say music is the intention to listen to sound, one that you choose to listen to or pay attention to, but then you might not get a "musical" response, like music that you don't like or it being in the background.
@@Francisco12G apparently you didn't read me correctly. I'm gonna try again. Sound is sound, whereas it has musical qualities is another subject, but sound on itself cannot be music because music implies that there are variations. If you don't agree with that, let me just argue that a note by itself is not music, might be the prolongue to music, but it's not as long as it's alone. Think about a beach where each grain of sand is a note, the entire beach would then be a
very rich composition, however just isolating a note on it's own doesn't make it music
@@PeterPepper93 I understood you correctly, i was just showing that beach analogy is interchangeable. Sound varies through time and even if it is a continuous tone your perception of that tone changes through time. It's about the response you get from sound. Maybe it doesn't tingle your brain the same way as a more traditional piece of music but it is still about how you respond to it, it is your brain who makes the music and recognizes patterns etc within our time and frequency perception. As soon as you hit play or make a decision to listen to something, you just created variation. Even if it was a single note, you would be hearing sounds around you, even if you were listening to it on headphones, you would hear your nervous system, your heartbeat, maybe even breathing. Maybe you don't pay attention to it, but there is always sound around us so no sound is isolated not even from its origin and context if were to look it that way and it is constantly being modulated by others and your perception. No day is the same. True silence is only real to the deaf or as the intention of absence or absence of a particular element. Doesn't matter if it doesn't work for you. Implying that music has to be several notes or tones, or that it has to have variation in the traditional sense is a very canonic way of looking at music, which basically disregards everything that doesn't fit that view. You couldn't say the same thing about sound being music because it ties everything together. I understand what you mean by sound being a palette for the music, but the music is already contained in sound, and by that regard even in a single sound. In that analogy, the beach is already contained in a single grain of sand if you were to separate it and experience it. You might say that variation is a relation, a comparison of what played now and what played next and before, the same when you are figuring a melody on the keyboard, but as soon as you hit a note, you just created a relationship between that note and the "silence" around it. That is music.
@@PeterPepper93 You might say that music is the process of tuning in to sound, a connection which can be communication also, and that music exists while and within our own perception of it while sound exists beyond that perception. Animals for instance hear sound in a completely different way and as so music, so what we call sound, even outside of our own perception, is still in a way inside it because we can't experience it in the same way. Some sounds happen, even if not in the exact moment of hearing them, as so hearing them through echoic memory, the same response of some pieces of music to me, even if they happen in a fraction of a second. Its the response to sound. Of course this was not immediate, as music makes this response more evident. Our perception of sound is musical, and so it is music. What we call sound inside of our own limitations and the perception of it, is music.
This is 100% right.
Electronic musicians ignore where their own genres came from - DJs hand-manipulating samples via turntable, manual modulation of pitch, amplitude, delays (using fader on mixer). Language, convention - the sampler is as big an advancement in abstraction in our time as the Neanderthal flute was in theirs.
Like generalisation huh ? We might ignore where our own genre come from, but we know where your comment is headed at least😂
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
I love sampling and I love Marxism. I agree with pretty much everything this guy said.
As an "act of resistance"? That's why such rebellious artists as the boring Top 20 hits use it?