Sampling has always been a strategy to deal with the past. It allows musicians to overlay different layers of time to bring them into coexistence and to create, thereby, what Simon Reynolds has called «a time warping pseudo event – something that could never possibly have happened». It is no surprise then that many producers process well known sounds from their own biographies, from childhood in particular. This could include music, or even snippets from pop culture such as movies, advertisement, video games, and so on. The American avant-garde pop musician Katie Gately adds another bullet to this list. In her tracks she samples familiar, sometimes scary sounds and noises from the everyday that are deeply connected to her childhood memory. Below, Gately sheds light on what I would call a psychological approach to sampling.
Meaning Matters
[Katie Gately]: The samples I gravitate towards tend to be of two kinds. First are the striking sounds. The ones that take me out of my daily life and inspire the possibility of a bigger, imaginary world. Second are the ones that feel very close, personal and overtly emotionally expressive. However, meaning definitely matters: if a sample is texturally exciting and has strong meaningful associations then it becomes overwhelmingly seductive to work with.
Sometimes meaning comes from memory and past associations with being scared as a kid. I grew up in Brooklyn in the 1980s during the height of the crack epidemic. My next door neighbor was a squatter who had a lot of drug addicts over and his doorbell was constantly buzzing. The walls were thin between the quite old houses so we heard everything. I definitely had heightened hearing when I went outside, just to survey the situation I was walking into. Today I feel a strong emotional response to creaky doors, shouting, knocking on doors, off-center rhythmic sounds, out-of-tune doorbells... things that might jolt or displease the ear. These sounds command attention... even if you don't like them, your body responds to them.
Perhaps I am obsessed with scary sounds to regain control over them? I'm not sure about the psychology of it – but I definitely was very stressed as a kid and I think I perhaps need to reconcile that as I get older.
Fireworks, a Breaking Guitar String, and Slamming Doors
Let's turn to a few tracks in which I've sampled sounds that let me remember my childhood. On the opener, «Lift», on my most recent album, Color, I wanted to channel this childish instinct. Often children act very uninhibited and mostly un-self-conscious, but also unhinged and defiant of boundaries. I wanted to make a really indulgent, child-joy track – the percussion is made out of a lot of fireworks samples. My birthday falls early on July 5th and in the U.S. the July 4th evenings always have lots of fireworks for celebration of Independence Day. I associate these sounds with excitement in childhood. On the same track there's a breaking guitar string as a percussion sound as well (it is actually a recording from myself tuning my brother's guitar many years ago). A sound that I hear as pretty violent.
Another example would be the track, «Tuck». The main beat and percussion alongside the kick and snare are about five different layered and arranged door-slams.
Later on the title track, «Color», I used a sample that was more psychologically based and less personal. The sounds in the opening are processed baby cries. That is a sample that I feel we universally understand as «sad» and the song is exploring a universal sense of isolation in ones own mind so for me it made sense to work with it.
On the track, «Stings», from my first EP, Katie Gately, I processed a sample of pipes moaning through the wall – that distinct waterpipe moan. This sample definitely struck me as a creepy sound reminiscent of childhood.
«Dead Referee» was a bit of a diss towards jocks. The idea was to take athletic sounds and make them into a horror movie. This was definitely influenced by my dreadful adolescence in which the jock girls rolled their eyes at me everyday in school.
Portals into Memories and Worlds
I wouldn't say the sounds always have to make a direct link to biography, though (as in sampling literal sounds from my childhood) it's more like the sounds that grab me often bring back a memory or association or might even strike up an image – and often I don't even figure out that meaningful link to biography until long after the track is done. In the first instance I am much more interested in sounds choosing me than me choosing sounds. When working more closely with a certain sound they finally act as portals into memories and worlds. But they often leave huge gaps too.
There is a theory in film – auteur theory – that is often claimed by musicians who have very deliberate goals and precise strategies for their work. This theory is very much the inverse of all my creative instincts to be honest. I am much more messy and impulsive as a worker. I just want to emphasize that it's important to me to disassociate from any theory or methodology or academic value system in my personal work. I like a sound, I use it. No rules beyond that. It isn't really the best story to tell but it's the true one.
Short Documentaries by Ableton on Katie Gatelies Producing Strategies
The quote was recorded via Email between 1.2.2017 and 28.4.2017. This article has been published in the context of the PhD research on sampling in experimental electronic music by Hannes Liechti. For more info click here.
Biography
Katie Gately, a Brooklyn native, is a music producer and sound designer currently based in Los Angeles, CA. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California where she received an MFA in Film and Sound Design. While a student, she pursued specialized minor studies in music production and audio programming. She is particularly interested in composition based upon found sounds and vocal processing. Her releases can be heard on Tri Angle Records, Fat Cat Records, Public Info UK, Blue Tapes Uk and One Little Indian. Follow her on Instagram, SoundCloud, Facebook, Youtube, or Spotify.
Biography
Hannes Liechti lives in Bern, Switzerland, as a popular music scholar/lecturer, curator, cultural producer, and content editor. He is the head of KULT Student Agency at Bern Academy of the Arts HKB. Since 2021, he is part of the executive board of the concert organizer bee-flat and in 2024 he was elected as a member of the Cultural Commission of the City of Bern. Liechti teaches history of popular music at Paderborn University, Germany. From 2013–2024 he worked as a producing manager and as a curator/editor for Norient. He co-published «Seismographic Sounds: Visions of a New World» (2015) and co-curated the corresponding exhibition on global pop. He edited the digital publication «Sampling Politics Today» (2020) and published his PhD on the culture of sampling in experimental electronica with Norient Books (2022). Follow him on Instagram or LinkedIn.
Digging traces of sampling in the tracks of Swiss producer and – as he calls himself – «dub scientist» Daniel Jakob aka Dubokaj led me to two interesting potentials of the production method: sampling as a hidden means of producing tracks and sampling ambient sounds as cultural signifiers. Listening to his recent album Alpine Dub (Mouthwatering Records 2016) and emailing with the artist back and forth, a few samples caught my attention: among them a drum beat by Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji and some animal bells. To learn more about these samples I met Daniel in his studio in Bern.
Hidden Sampling in «On the Plant»
We always talk about samples that we can actually hear in the final version of a track or samples where the producer tells listeners that they are processed in the track (which is still quite often not verifiable by the listener). But we don’t talk about samples that no longer appear in the final track, though they nevertheless shaped the production process. One such example is Dubokajs «On the Plant».
In our email conversation Daniel told me about a sample from the Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji that he has supposedly used here. To dig into the origins of the sample we had to go a few years back. Until 2011, he used a drum loop from Olatunji in live performances. You can already hear this loop in «Loibrumm», an unreleased track from his former project Filewile. It was in that folder on Daniel’s hard disk where we found the first hint to the track «Takuta» by Olatunji – Daniel sampled the intro loop from the first two seconds of the track. For the Filewile project he heavily sliced the Olatunji beat.
Almost five years later, when he was working on his new project under the moniker of Dubokaj, he was browsing through his files and came to the Olatunji sample once again. He cut and warped and took it as one of the basic loops to work with for his new track. But when clicking through the history of the project files it became obvious that the beat was only there in the beginning of the process. At a certain point, the sample disappeared from the files.
This exemplifies Daniels playful approach to musical production. His workflow is rather a messy drag-and-drop than a straight concept: «I use to work with a lot of samples. Some drop out during the production process and some survive.» Nevertheless, even Daniel was surprised that we couldn't find the Olatunji sample anymore. Due to the fact that the sample was part of the project for a certain period, and that there is a short drum loop in the final version that recalls the Olatunji sample, we have to assume that it inspired Daniel during the production process and shaped the track to an important degree. «The sample helped to compose a new groove», Daniel agrees.
This case study of musical sampling raises three main points. First, it becomes evident that in many cases sampling has to be regarded as a process that spans many years. There is quite a period between saving some sound snippets on the hard drive, using them a first time in a live show or another unfinished track, and then finally bringing them to their (temporary) destination in a certain track. Second, there is such thing as «hidden sampling»: samples that are used only for a certain period within the production process and then disappear. And, finally, producers often don't really know, or aren’t aware of, the samples they have used in their tracks. They don't save the source material or – as in the case of Dubokaj – they remember wrongly what they have used exactly. But let's now have a look on another Alpine Dub track:
Sampling Cultural Signifiers in «Uniborg»
Here Dubokaj uses different kinds of samples: self recorded vocal samples, synths and basses as presets from Reaktor's Monark by Native Instruments, and, finally, some goat bells. Let's have a deeper look on the latter (appearing in the beginning, at 2:29 and at 3:33).
Daniel took the sample most probably from a YouTube video. He was browsing the video platform for this particular sound and wanted to incorporate it as flavor for his track. Once extracted from the video file, he edited the sound, again warped it, pitched it a little bit down, and layered two different clips of the same sample – one on the left and one on the right (panning). The sample also inspired him to add another high-frequency, bell-like sound on top of the goats, built with an instrument, designed in Max for Live, that he uses regularly. In this instance, he even enlarged the original goat sound.
According to Daniel these sounds have the function of ambient sounds. On the vinyl version of Alpine Dub you hear such sounds appear even between the tracks. With these sounds he told me he wanted to create a certain atmosphere on the album (he couldn't really specify what kind of atmosphere he had in mind). Disregarding any potential intention by the producer, these sounds fit perfectly into the PR concept of Alpine Dub and the fiction of a Swiss dub producer from the Alps. At this point, the sample turns into a cultural signifier even though we don't know where the goats are really coming from. Moreover, the concept of Alpine Dub was most probably included only after Daniel has done the main work on the track.
Looking through the media coverage on the album the bells are not discussed as a musical signifier for the Alpine surrounding at all. Interestingly, however, I gained another impression on the track's reception when doing a short listening test: the interview partners who have been strongly connected to the track or the project didn't speak about the bell sounds and the ones who weren't familiar with the track immediately identified it mainly as «cow bells from the Swiss Alps». It seems, finally, that «place» is an important topic on the Alpine Dub project, even though it might not have played an important role during the production process.
A Documentary on Alpine Dub by Pascal Greuter
Dubokaj: Alpine Dub Re Dub (Mouthwatering, 2017)
The interview has been conducted in Bern, Switzerland, 19.8.2016. This article has been published in the context of the PhD research on sampling in experimental electronic music by Hannes Liechti. For more info click here.
Biography
Hannes Liechti lives in Bern, Switzerland, as a popular music scholar/lecturer, curator, cultural producer, and content editor. He is the head of KULT Student Agency at Bern Academy of the Arts HKB. Since 2021, he is part of the executive board of the concert organizer bee-flat and in 2024 he was elected as a member of the Cultural Commission of the City of Bern. Liechti teaches history of popular music at Paderborn University, Germany. From 2013–2024 he worked as a producing manager and as a curator/editor for Norient. He co-published «Seismographic Sounds: Visions of a New World» (2015) and co-curated the corresponding exhibition on global pop. He edited the digital publication «Sampling Politics Today» (2020) and published his PhD on the culture of sampling in experimental electronica with Norient Books (2022). Follow him on Instagram or LinkedIn.
Though today we often consider churches and their carillons as disturbances to our well-deserved sleep, they were formerly used by cities to display grandiosity and importance. In this sequel of the Sampling Stories we trace the history of the bells of the biggest church in Rotterdam, the Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk. Its bell sounds play an important role in the tracks of the compilation 010 (Fog Mountain Records 2016), released by RE:VIVE, an initiative from the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision that aims to bring together archives and artists to create new music out of and inspired by curated sets of archival material. While RE:VIVE's Gregory Markus unfolds the history of the church, Norient invited the artists from the compilation to tell us about their sampling strategies when processing bell sounds from the church in question.
In May 14, 1940, the city of Rotterdam was devastated. A thriving medieval metropolis that served as the key entry point for the rest of the world seeking to enter Europe was reduced to rubble. By the numbers, 25,000 homes, 2,500 stores, 775 warehouses, 65 schools were destroyed and somewhere between 700 and 900 people lost their lives (City Guide Rotterdam 2019). This event has gone on to define their city. Its looming futuristic sky-line, modern architectural marvels, juxtaposed with post-war concrete blocks (and a sliver of remaining medieval houses) make Rotterdam feel more like a second-class American urban area – like Cleveland or Des Moines – than a Dutch city.
For RE:VIVE, once we did our Damrak compilation where every track was inspired by Amsterdam and composed out of archival sounds made in the city we knew that Rotterdam had to be next because we needed to hear how artists would interpret the Netherlands «second city». Damrak raised eyebrows since it didn’t sound like canal houses and tech-house, it was clear from the sounds and images that there was more to the city than what draws millions to it each year. Damrak exposed obfuscated aspects of Amsterdam’s history. We hoped then that with 010 and the shift to Rotterdam, instead of exploring the hidden parts of the city we’d celebrate the obvious this time: ship horns, port mechanics, industrial constructions with hints of hope, struggle, and progress.
The archival sounds in the sample pack (from the large treasures of the The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision; access full sample pack for 010here) didn’t lend themselves to melody. The most prominent sounds were the Port of Rotterdam’s rhythmic churning sounds, incredible ship horns, and church bells. Specifically, the bells of the St. Laurenskerk which would go on to bookend of the compilation, solemnly introducing and majestically concluding the journey.
From Destruction to Restoration
The Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk is a Protestant church built between 1449 and 1525. Originally it was a Roman Catholic church, but during the Reformation of 1572, it was converted to Protestant. The structure is the last remaining relic of the gothic, medieval Rotterdam, and it looks severely out of place in the current city center. To an unknowing eye one would think the church came later almost like Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
However, one could argue the church did come later. Following the Rotterdam Blitz on May 14, 1940 the church barely remained with just the walls and tower left standing. It’s important to note that there’s a historical belief that Rotterdam almost wasn’t bombed – that the bombing was perhaps an accident because the Dutch army had surrendered or sought to extended negotiations.
It didn’t take long for restoration talks to begin the following June, and by September it was assessed that restoration was possible but would be expensive, especially during wartime austerity. Many plans for the church were proposed, including total demolition, the restoration of the tower but construction of a modern church or to simply leave the ruins as a memorial. It wasn’t until 1947 that a plan for a full, original restoration was agreed upon. In the words of the Queen, «and the answer shall be: naturally the tower will be rebuilt because Rotterdam was, is, and always will be: Rotterdam» (Konigin in St-Laurens 1952).
The Carillon
What makes the story of the St. Laurenskerk special is not just the cliché about Rotterdam as a «phoenix» but more specifically, its bells. Church bells are a sound that dominate almost every European city. Millions of people flock to main squares simply to hear church bells ring out. They echo across small towns and landscapes and, more often than not for the unlucky few living next to them, are an early morning wake-up call. To an untrained ear, bells might just sound like the clangy clang of massive metal objects. In reality, their nuance and tonal capacity is an elegant, mathematical mystery of early sound design perfected by two Frenchmen in the Low Countries nearly 400 years ago.
The story goes that on August 23, 1638, Descartes wrote to a colleague named Marin Mersenne and proclaimed, «In Utrecht lives a blind man with a great musical reputation, who regularly plays bells. I have seen how he elicits five or six different sounds on each of the largest bells without touching them, but only by coming close to their sound rim with his mouth» (Rombouts 2014). This gentleman was named Jacob van Eyck and indeed was blind but had tremendous hearing capacity. Van Eyck was a carillon virtuoso who mastered the long standing yet elusive theory among carillonneurs that bell sounds are «partial notes consisted of three notes an octave apart, supplemented by a minor third and a pure fifth in the second octave» (ibid.). However, to realize his theory he needed experts to make the actual bells. Enter Pierre and François Hemony, French brothers and carillon makers that had recently moved to the Low Countries.
François and Pierre were born in France in 1609 and 1619, respectively, but relocated to the Rhineland in 1640. It was there that the brothers’ career took off. After a commission for the Dutch town, Goor, they were awarded a commission by the town of Zutphen for the new Winery Tower and moved there to open their foundry. In 1644 the two delivered their product. The bells, presumably done under consultation from Van Eyck, were the most well tuned and crafted bells in the area. They’re believed by some to be the first perfectly tuned carillon but no one can hear them anymore: in 1920 the tower burned down taking the bells with it.
It was a perfect storm of circumstances for the Hemony brothers who set themselves apart with the Winery Tower and a new set of carillon done under consultation with Van Eyck for the town of Deventer. A year later in 1648 the peace of Munster was signed and the Dutch Republic was awarded sovereignty. At the time, cities used churches and their carillon to display grandiosity and importance. With an urge to raise their profile, the newly sovereign Dutch cities sought to celebrate by having the most perfect and lush carillion throughout Europe, distinguishing themselves from their former rulers. For Pierre and Francois, this meant that business was good.
Together and individually, the brothers delivered 50 carillon throughout Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden. Under the initial guidance of the blind Van Eyck, they turned the carillon into a viable musical instrument. There were doubts after the brothers’ deaths that no one would be able to match their level of mastery. For centuries after, new bell makers would be compared to the Hemony standard.
Field Recordings from the Bells of St. Laurenskerk
Access full sample pack for 010here (Creative Commons BY-SA license).
The Signifying Bells
The immense history and legacy that exists in these towers is something that’s not often considered by the general population. The idea that the equivalent of a Stradivarius, which rings out and reverberates for miles every day (like the urban legend of a famed violinist playing a free concert disguised as a busker for busy commuters) is something we take for granted. We hear what we hear and see what we see but don’t recognize the greatness behind it simply because no one is there to tell us it’s great.
For Rotterdam, it seems almost too serendipitous that the Laurenskerk remained after the bombing. While the vast majority of the church had burned out, most of the Hemony carillon remained intact because of a recently poured concrete floor in the tower.
For 010 the Laurenskerk played a huge sonic role because it offered clear melodic frequencies and with warm tails and drones. We chose to use it as both the intro and closing for the compilation as a way to signify a start and end, warm prologue and epilogue for what is otherwise a rather rough ride. Rotterdam begs for metaphors and cliches like this. And while for the normal person the Hemony bells in the Laurenskerk will ring out unacknowledged, a few will listen and think how lucky it is to be hearing the last fleeting sonic remnants of a city that once was. So the bells will ring on for the time being and signify each new day as Rotterdam pushes on.
«It was not the specific church that drew me in, I didn't find the name of the church until later. It is just the nature of the bells and the effect they have on me in various cities around the world. There is something in the nature of church bells that helps you widen your perspective on a city. This is a combination of the way that the sound travels and cuts through the wall of noise and also in their purpose, calling to you. Often, because the environment is built up, it is hard to look beyond your current position in a city, but church bells pull you into a larger perspective.
In the track, I attempted to process the bells in a way that gave the impression of the sound being stretched over an increasing distance, beginning in close vicinity of the church and then opening out as though hearing them from the other side of the city, or travelling away from them. At the start of the track, the bells fall into small, almost percussive segments as I attempted to model a sense of movement in the sound. This is reinforced with recordings of various modes of transport within the city and a melodic pulse from the Metro. In order to achieve this, I used a variety of granular processes. I wanted the transition from the bells into the string segment to go almost unnoticed and for the whole piece to slowly unravel as you travel further from the original sound. The bell sound begins dry, slightly tuned to fit the key of the piece, and is then gradually stretched using a combination of Mutable Clouds, a modular granular processor, and Omnisphere 2's granular processor.»
«For me, and I would assume many people, church bells possess a spiritual aura and express a unique religious emotion or something of greater power - even enlightenment. They also have their negative connotations but the Sint Laurenskerk bells sounded powerful and uplifting. I've always wanted to bring these concepts to my own music and the Sint Laurenskerk bells were quite valuable to my contribution to the compilation.
When I was creating my track, ‹Eva›, I knew I wanted to use the bells for a melody to bring emotion to the dense industrial sounds I'd been working with. The bells were the best option to create some tones with. Adding these tones boosted the track to the «greater power» it needed. The track no longer sounded like it was just a machine, it had become a machine with divine power.
I processed the sample by focusing on getting a decent one shot of the bell and controlling the volume to force it to fade out. Then I warped it and added some reverb to extend its length and volume. I did my best to stay true to the original sound of the bell while still getting the melodic background sound I had in mind. When I added it to my arrangement, I tried out a few different pitches and created a looping melody. It blended really well with the rest of the sounds I created and I was quite happy with the effect it had on the track.»
«To be honest, the bells were one of the few tonal samples, so looking for a sound that could be used in a simple, musical way, without having to manipulate it, made the bells an easy choice. Apart from that, I must admit I really love the sound of bells, the attack, ringing, textures...
I tried to use the sample in a raw way, I did not want it to sound cosy, but rather wanted it to sound a bit too harsh and loud compared to other sounds going on. I imported the sample, made sure the tones were more or less in key with the rest of the track, and then recorded myself turning knobs on a filter and reverb as the track played along. I really like more in-depth sampling, it's a big part of what I do, I guess, but the bells in this case were just perfect in their original form, to give the rest of the track some more life and energy, which was what I was aiming for.»
«To be honest, I really thought I had used the Sint Laurenskerk sample. At some point I was playing with it and my general process was to grab whatever I liked the sound of and sounded ‹clean› enough, and I began stretching and processing and improvising with Supercollider. So, at some point, I remember getting something interesting out of the bells but going through the project files now I can't hear anything from the bells in any of the material I actually used in the end. That was compounded by the fact that all of my source material ended up with names like ‹sc_9123_019329823_123.aif›, so it's really hard to be sure. It's possible some stray grains of bell made it through»
Anonymous. 1952. «Koningin in St-Laurens: ‹Rotterdam was, is en blijft immers: Rotterdam›». Het Vrije Volk: Democratisch-Socialistisch Dagblad May 19: 7. (http://www.delpher.nl/nl/kranten/view?coll=ddd&identifier=ddd:010951381:mpeg21:a0154).
Rotterdam City Guide. 2019. «The Destroyed City of Rotterdam». Accessed June 20. (https://www.cityguiderotterdam.com/things-to-do/sights/the-destroyed-city-rotterdam/).
Rombouts, Luc. 2014. Singing Bronze: A History of Carillon Music. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
This article has been published in the context of the PhD research on sampling in experimental electronic music by Hannes Liechti. For more info click here.
Biography
Gregory Markus is a project leader at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. His focus is on, R&D, community engagement and creative re-use of archival materials. He holds a BA and MA in European Studies with a focus on European Identity and transnational communities.
