the most important 6 seconds in music history

since i seem to be in a musical mood, here’s another post for sound lovers:

if you’ve listened to any song that uses samples, be it hip hop, drum n bass, dub or a lot of other flavors, you’ve heard the “amen break”. it’s a sample from the b-side of a single of the winstons from 1969, that only lasts 6 seconds.

it’s absolutely amazing how far those snare beats came, it became the base of nearly every drum n bass and jungle song.

nate harrison made an eerie fascinating installation/art project where he narrrates the story of this ubiquitous peace of musical history.

i’ve been hooked to the 20min-movie after the first time he plays the original sample. nate manages to run down the complete story of that key aural ingredient in contemporary cultural expression during the progress of the movie. he shows a lot of examples, compares them to the original recording and even covers the implications of sampling material on copyright law.

you can only listen to the movie, nothing really happens, except some cuts between a turntable and speakers, but i found it worth watching the progress of the needle on the wax, giving a meditative touch to the story.

you can watch the movie here or download a copy on the archive.org.

if you only have a slight interest in musical history you must watch it!

[via boingboing]

technorati tags: amen, breakbeats, copyright, music, sample