I would say partially. It reminds me of a mix between The Field, Jamie XX and Burial.
Haha. Youāve probs just given me the biggest compliment you could have as thatās exactly what I aim for in the tunes. Iāll take it. Next goal is to try something like this in SW
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Wellā¦ if you were insulted by my comment that would of been very perplexing.
The sound of vocal sample in the beginning gives me strong Burial vibes and Iām not sure exactly why. Anyways, please share the track if you decide to finish it.
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All very well known mega-hits, not obscure crate digger stuff.
I wonder how much of the atmosphere in his tunes comes from the samples being intimately familiar, even if you donāt consciously recognise the chopped snippets.
How does he make such loopy tracks that donāt get boring??
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I actually think this is an interesting question because he kinda challenges conventional wisdom on this one. As Iāve been learning the electronic side of production, there are a lot of themes that come up about how you make a track interesting. For example, layering, constantly changing elements throughout a track to create interest etc. I believe (from the interviews others have posted here) that thereās an element of live performance to his productions, to the point that there are mistakes in them.
Whatās interesting to me is that The Field doesnāt do much of the changing up of elements, or if he does itās barely audiable. One thing I have noticed is that changes throughout a passage are often super slow to take place. For example, he might use a phaser or chorus sound on something. Normally the advice would be to resolve that within a 4 bar loop to take you into the next one, but The Field will run it out over maybe 4x 4 bar loops to the point that you barely notice it. For example, take a listen to the snare on Morning. At the start, it sounds ever so slightly different to the later part of the song. Maybe itās a slight change of pitch or a minute difference in ADSR on the sound, but either my ears are playing up (possible) or thereās a very slight change as the song progresses.
Not sure if this explains anything, but those subtle changes (imagined or otherwise) go some way to creating that hypnotic, trance like state you get into when listening to his stuff.
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We would also need a GAS thread, to be honest.
EDIT: not that kind of GAS
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Lots of those about hehe.
Cupidās Head might just be my favourite The Field album, and I listen to his music almost daily.
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While I do enjoy Cupidās Head Iām all about Looping State of Mind and From Here We Go Sublime. I think Everyday has the best transition / escalation ever! I listened to that track all dayeveryday for over a month and never got sick of itā¦
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My intro to Axel was the HANDS record. Which is one of my treasured LPs.
Got to see him in Seattle a few years back. The openers (some local jags) were dogshit. I dont think alot of people were expect The Field to be so LOUD (thats what he was touring as).
Whatās the Hands record? I love the field!
This thread sort of sent me down a Field rabbit hole today and I was pretty interested to find out that his first album was made before he got the Octatrack (at least that is what he implies in a few interviews Iāve read). He mainly used Buzz for that one, which shines a lot on the fact that itās really not the gear but the idea behind it. I always had this idea that he was such an Elektron-focused guy, which he surely did become later, but From Here We Go Sublime was made before he had the Octatrack. I do wonder if the drums from it were also samples or came from the Machinedrum. Anyone have any theories?
Edit: it came out before the OT was even out so he couldnāt have used it on that album!
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Perhaps he has a friend at WhoSampled. That site mustāve cost samplists a pretty penny. Hmm thereās a conspiracy theory in there
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Kink was the same I think, definitely a lot of his early tunes were buzz so for sure shows if you put your mind to it!
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A random thought came into my head about The Field, as I just picked up a Tracker and I thought I might go back to Sublime for a bit of inspiration on ways of working with that sort of sequencing. I stumbled upon another comment from a different interview where Axel discusses his use of samples.
āI absolutely canāt talk about the specific samples, but what Iāve realized is that if I donāt have an emotional connection to the track I want to sample or the sample itself, it doesnāt really work.ā
Interesting that he says he simply canāt talk about them. But aside from that, it got me thinking again about what to sample.
Iāve often felt that Iād work best with a close connection to the song Iām sampling from, and in fact I asked a question about this earlier on in my time on this board. I will say that I do use loops from packs in music Iād like to release for the simple reason that I can release with a clear conscience. That music is synth based, mostly, so the samples play less of a role anyway. I know others have a devil-may-care approach where they will sample literally anything. But I guess in my wonky way of thinking, if a sample is just meaningless sound source material, then sampling from commercial records seems like a risk when you could just get any old sound from a sample library and work with thatā¦ Anyway, I digress.
I would like to go back to just ripping stuff out of my favourite songs that inspire me and loop them in a somewhat similar way to the snippet I posted earlier. The only thing is Iād have to maybe keep them to myself in the era weāre in. But it would be awesome to go in with feeling to records Iām into to pull from and sample and try and loop the heck out of them in a Field inspired project. I never did finish that idea I had because it may contain fragments of a famous song, but if I can find a way of working through that, I might at least privately make some stuff thatās not for public consumption.
I bet itās a minefield for Axel compared to when The Field started!
Itās a tough question. I frequently sample video games - usually for dialogue, occasionally for sound effects to use as percussion. Never for outright musical elements. Legally, that distinction doesnāt matter, of course, and Iām sure if I sample from the wrong companyās game they might nail me to the wall and legally they would have every right to.
As far as sampling published music, I rarely actually sample anything I listen to and love. This is partially a practical/ legal protection matter (see above), and also that in the very few instances when Iāve done that, it has irreparably changed the way I viewed the source material. Every time I hear it, I can hear how I used the sample. The homage turned into a curse, similar to how using a beloved song as a ringtone could eventually ruin the song because you start to associate it more with a phone call than its original context. I also find that when Iām listening to music to sample it, I donāt listen to the music - I tear it apart mentally. Which has its place, but is a very different experience.
I suppose a solution to the legal issue is to sample from artists who arenāt on big labels and who you know truly donāt care or would even value the act, or use samples from those who explicitly give permission. I havenāt settled on a solution for the context issue, other than to sample from things Iām less attached to but find interesting.
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Thatās an interesting perspective, thanks for sharing. Sounds like Axel has a sortof inner drive to do it when he hears something he likes. But then he seems to be saying that by turning it into something that loops as his music does, it becomes something else - to the point that you almost imagine things that arenāt there, which becomes its whole own experience then.
I sortof have this idea that lots of the old songs I like could be āBurialisedā where they become little glimspes, mashed together into a new thing that somehow represents the fact that they are a time thatās passed (you know, the whole āoutside the clubā thing he does, which creates a feeling of melancholy & distance). The example tune I posted above has 2 well known songs in it. I saw it as a sort of homage to a time of life if you will. Iām not sure if Iād end up making similar music on a tracker as I played the parts in, but it was a fun experiment at aiming for that Burial meets Field vibe I like.
But I do see your point. Maybe there comes a time when trawling through your collection for a perfect emotional connection could drain you of that connection somehow - turning it into work somehow. And doing it repeatedly might change your view on how you see the old material.
Also, because I get a bit worried - personally I have stayed away from sampling real songs. I guess in creating micro snippets/samples, they become unrecogniseable, and so it can be just as fun to find a sample in a pack that works as in a song.
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Iām a bit late to the party, thank you however for mentioning this one (āThe Soul Is Quickā), very nice.
Iām not sure if it has been mentioned before, another great ambient record from Axel is āAnd Never Ending Nightsā by Loops Of Your Heart:
I checked this thread this morning, because I felt like I could do with a new The Field album 
I still listen to āInfinite Momentā a lot, but itās been 6 years already!
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