Gqom from Durban is being added to our Norient playlists for quite a while now. On our recent South African tour we finally met some of the producers of this deep and dark electronic music in different townships around Durban. We interviewed them, and edited, mixed and manipulated their voices and music. First take of our gqom edits: Citizen Boy, and his grandmother. We met them at their house in Avoca Hills, Durban. Co-produced by Thomas Burkhalter, Bit-Tuner and Dejot. Check also the Gqom-Takes with Dominowe and Menchess.
Grandmother – Gqom Edits 002 by Burkhalter, Bit-Tuner, Dejot
Tracks (mis)used to create grandmother/SouthAfrican vibe: «Qwa (Lion)» by Qwii – Tebogo Tshotesi (Bushman) from the album Ancient Civilizations Of Southern Africa + «Rhaliweni (Railway)» by Sun Glen from the album The Thula Project / An Album Of South African Lullabies
#Fame
«When fame arrives, a lot will change. I would move from my bedroom studio into a professional one. And I would buy new equipment and then make more money. I would go partying, all Friday long.» Citizen Boy
Citizen Boy on Music Production
[Thomas Burkhalter]: How do you produce your tracks? What are the first steps?
[Citizen Boy]: Ok. You need a computer, two speakers, and you need the Fruity Loops software. You install it and you play it. The first thing you need for gqom is the deep kick, the bass. It has to be awesome and perfect. Then you need strings, some percussion, a snare, and few samples.
[TB]: How do you edit and arrange these sounds in your software?
[CB]: Ok, let me tell you what I do. I paste a kick, I listen to the kick, and I make it deep. I turn the volume very high – so that sometimes my family complains. I play the kick and I put the string. I listen to this beat properly and I go into that vibe. I take a sample, I put the sample in, and the beat just becomes perfect. Then I put the snare, and it becomes even more perfect. Then I listen to it all together and I have my gqom track. You need only like six or eight things for a gqom track.
[TB]: Do you mainly use presets from within Fruity Loops? And if so, how do you manipulate them?
[CB]: For samples I use effects. I use delay, flanger, phaser, and reverb. The string I don’t manipulate, I just use the preset. And I also don’t do anything with the kick. It is a preset too. I just turn the volume higher, so the music give you that vibe.
[TB]: From where do you take your samples?
[CB]: I find them via Google. I download them, I put it into Fruity Loops and slice it.
Quotes
#Dreams
«It is like a dream. I always wanted to shine.» Citizen Boy
#Reputation
«When people come to my house, certain people like famous people, I make sure that someone looks at me while I’m going up. I make sure that I walk slowly so they can see like what’s going on. I’m showing off, basically.» Citizen Boy
#Family
«My parents at first didn’t support me at all but as soon as Francesco came they saw it’s going somewhere. So, they started to support me but they said I must prioritize studying first. So, during school days I don’t do music. I only do music during the holidays, maybe on the weekends and stuff, yeah.» Citizen Boy
Releases
#Friendship
«My EP Tribute to UK is my tribute to Francesco, my manager. I’m praising him for the good things he has done for me.» Citizen Boy
Bit-Tuner aka Marcel Gschwend, born 1978 in St. Gallen, lives and works in Zürich, Switzerland Born and raised in St. Gallen, Bit-Tuner works and lives in Zürich today. He's been producing electronic music with computers, mpcs, synthesizers, bass guitars and a fleet of analogue effect gear. He has a fondness for samples from old records, movies and has also been discovering field recording. Bit-Tuner works with heavy beats, blown up bass sounds, gloomy athmospheres, acid-driven melodies and uproaring soundscapes. His musical field of expression reaches from experimental hip hop to electronica, from bass music to noise, theatre productions, fashion shows, and shortfilm soundtracks. Follow him on Youtube, Spotify, X, Facebook, SoundCloud, or on his Website.
Biography
Dejot aka Daniel Jakob (aka Dubokaj) is a Swiss electronica producer, film composer based in the city of Bern. Follow him on Spotify, Facebook, or Instagram.
The second Norient book «Seismographic Sounds: Visions of a New World» introduces you to a contemporary world of distinct music and music videos. Written by 250 scholars, journalists, bloggers and musicians from 50 countries.
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.
Howling sirens and sharp sound explosions: Listening to «Libres», the heavily sample-based opener of the EP San Benito (NON Worldwide) by Argentine producer Moro, one is easily getting the impression of sampled war sounds with virtual video game aesthetics (see how the sounds have been described elsewhere). Talking with Moro on Skype it became apparent that although there is a deeply political message behind the processed samples, the 2016 track «Libres» is neither about video games nor is he using any war samples. For this «Sampling Stories» sequel we picked out one of the crucial samples of the track to discuss in detail: the sound of chains.
From the Atlantic Slave Trade to the Current Refugee Crisis
What sounds like an explosion or a battleship at the beginning of the track is actually a sample of someone throwing himself into water, Moro tells me. These water samples are repeated all over the track in various edits and are combined with other sampled sounds. For example, listen to the only melodic element in the track, a line of four notes sounding far-off: a one note sample of a ship alarm, compressed and sequenced at different pitches. But let's shed light on another sound: sampled chains. Listen to the plain sample here:
The sound of chains can be heard throughout the whole track, but we will now focus on a certain edit: at 0.30-0.36 and between 1.14 and 2.46. The sound vibrates continuously, but sometimes barely hearable in the background:
When talking to Moro I recognized that this sample is not only crucial for the track, but for San Benito as a whole. He told me about the sample and the EP:
«‹Libres› means ‹free› and the whole EP San Benito is about slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. I was thinking about the actual refugee crisis as well: nowadays all around the world refugees are also using these kinds of ocean boats to move from continent to continent. They are all trying to be free from something by coming to another place but there they might not get the freedom they are looking for. That's what «Libres» is about. When starting to produce the track, I was picturing the two speakers and an image of falling chains came into my mind. I wanted people to look at falling chains when listening to the track. Chains, that represent people who fight for their freedom by putting off the chains they have been manacled with.»
Rhythm as the Track's DNA
Looking for a suitable sample, he was browsing the web and succeeded on a sound library webpage. In order to strengthen the meaning of the sample as an expression of freedom and resistance, Moro edited it and put it into a clave rhythm: «This rhythm has been historically used as a resistance expression, especially here in Argentina and Uruguay», he explained. He used a son clave pattern, the main pattern in Argentine and Uruguayan candombe music. There, it is called «madera».
In his tracks, Moro is consciously trying to avoid the feeling of a simple four-on-the-floor beat. Instead, his beats are fragmented, broken, and heavily syncopated. Rather than establish a steady beat, he lets certain rhythms become guiding elements for both the listener and the dancer. In «Libres», it's the clave rhythm lying behind the track, time and time again (but not predominantly) present through this sample. On a meta level, this strong emphasis on rhythm is linked with the EP's subject: «The slaves back then brought these riddims as their DNA with them. What I try to do is reclaiming these rhythms and making them important and visible again. So this five notes rhythm becomes the DNA of my music as well», Moro explains.
Sampling as a Weapon of Expanding a Message
By sampling a simple sound file, downloaded from a sound library, and transformed into a clave rhythm, Moro uses sampling as – in his own words – «a weapon of expanding or remembering a message». And here we are again using war terminology: although he is not using concrete war samples in «Libres», he is obviously using samples as «weapons». It is not violent but a politically engaged way to make a statement, to tell a story.
The interview has been conducted via Skype, 25.1.2017. 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
Hannes Liechti lives in Bern, Switzerland, as a popular music scholar/lecturer, curator, cultural producer, and content editor. He is the head of KULT Music 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.
