Blockhead – The Music Scene (2009) [Ninja Tune] // Grade: A

Ok, let’s get straight to it. Music comes from a lot of places, and some music comes from other music—and that’s called sampling. Sampling started, in its most elemental states, when humans realized that they could change the character of sounds. It slowly changed from a novelty to a compositional means. To do a very broad, sweeping analysis one might highlight these moments in a genealogy of sampling; when Cage composed Imaginary Landscape no. 4; when Pierre Schaeffer recorded Étude aux chemin de fer; when Holger Czukay cut up Canaxis; when Eno and Byrne collaged My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. But, for all that the Avant Garde did with sampling, it amounts to little more than a footnote once you get to hip hop. Kool Herc, Bambaata, Flash, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl, and other pioneers captured the essence of the praxis of their progenitors, and instilled it with a distinct vitality—hip hop gave sampling its legs. It was by way of hip hop that sampling spread to the masses and became one of the marks of contemporary culture.

Hip hop’s flourishing occurred in sync with a flourishing in the instrument business, and savvy manufacturers began creating products that moved sampling from professional studios equipped with exorbitantly expensive CMIs and such, to bedrooms equipped with SP1200s and MPC60s. So, the same movements that brought hip hop to the masses also carried it back into more cultish circles—as the equipment became more affordable one need not worry on recouping costs in excess of $100,000. As samplers became incredibly affordable musicians began working in markets that didn’t privilege hits, but instead looked back towards hip hop’s roots.

In the beginning there were records, and records were what made the DJs who made hip hop. There is an enormous amount of cultural capital that goes along with owning records, and knowing about obscure records. So, as hordes of young Americans were getting their hands on samplers they were making music that was measured by the music that it came from. This movement then refined sampling further, and the act of making music from music became codified. Some samples became staples, and some samples became taboo. Early musicians established a methodology for working with samples, and that methodology continues to proliferate, and be revised. It is as much an established means of making music as is counterpoint. It is all undergirded by listening though—a producer whose primary means is samples has developed a unique way of listening, and is able to draw peculiar connections between the way something sounds, and the way that it can sound.

When most people listen to music they hear music. A packaged, and finished object in the world, it’s heard and then it’s gone. The only way that music becomes something subjective is in our interpretation of its meaning, or the way it affects our emotions. For most of us the music we hear is closed, it is finished. But, for a producer who works from samples music sounds quite different. The producer hears the music in terms of what can be done with it, it is a material to be manipulated. The producer hears the openings in music, the ways in which it can become something else. Half of the work of making music from samples comes in hearing them, and knowing what can be done with them.

I know that was a long lead up, but I think it’s necessary to give you an idea of the world that Blockhead is operating in. When you listen to this record, you’re listening to soooooooo much listening. The majority of what you’re hearing is listening. That’s not to detract from the work that has been done in putting this music together, because there’s heaps of that. But, music like this comes together by virtue of the fact that someone like Blockhead is always listening for new source material—for him a song is both a song and a means for a new song. And, the songs on this record are dense with accumulated means.

This is the record that you wait for, they only come around every few years. Instrumental music built primarily from samples has a very distinct quality that cannot be achieved any other way. And, creating an album worth of material like this is not an easy feat. It wraps up all the great and disparate features of the records it’s culled from; it’s ethereal while it’s driving; it’s spacious while immediate; the melodies are engaging; and so forth. It’s a pastiched best of that you can ride to or die to, equally suited for slaying beasts or pacifying them. For the most part though it steers towards the feel of Future Days stringing you along with mellow tunes, and periodically propelling you with highly energized runs. It is replete with vocal drops from obscure sources that spin a tale that we’re probably not meant to comprehend so much as attempt to comprehend.

The arrangements are one of the most striking elements of this record. Blockheads’ tracks are composed of many components, and the arrangements do a good job of leading us through the different layers in a way that helps us appreciate the overall structure. Full arrangements suddenly breakdown to a driving drum track that is then skillfully built back up to an enveloping pristine fog of sounds.

The record is mixed, and engineered very well. There is perfect clarity to each of the elements of the songs which is no easy feat when you’re working with elements from many different sources, all of which are marked with their own character. However, the mixing and engineering is simultaneously the only point at which this record begins to falter. The mastering is relatively uniform from track to track, which is logical by an engineers standards, but seems to be antithetical to Blockhead’s larger project. Being that this music is based in the diversity of sounds that it is built from I would have preferred to hear a more diverse use of mastering techniques and equipment, a dynamic variance in accord with the process. However, this is a rather minimal element of critique in the grand scheme of things.

If you’re a fan of music I recommend that you purchase this record.

- Zachg