No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: Pat Metheny & Tosca

Episode Date: February 21, 2018

On this week's Sidetrack we focus on the art of sampling in electronic music. A single chord from a 1977 Pat Metheny song gets sampled in one of our favorite Tosca tracks, "Rondo Acapricio". For more info, check out the shown notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/tosca-suzuki-review#sidetrack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun!

The meeting will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1-8665-3-3-2-60 or visit Comex Ontario.ca. With MX Platinum. You have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply.

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no, but chicken tenders, yes. because those are groceries and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol and other everyday essentials.

Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. And the dub is also where the engineer becomes the artist. Where the engineer uses a skill on the board to give a new life to maybe a whole rhythm. And this is our sidetrack episode for the week.

This is No Filler podcast. My name is Quentin. And with me is my brother Travis. As you heard in that in that little interview piece that we played, down tempo music and electronic music has a history of sampling things, right? Sampling vocal tracks. sampling other other instruments things that have already been recorded whatever there's a there's a history that goes back to um reggae and dub or or a subgenre of reggae called dub that sort of

originated in the 60s and um dub essentially is um a genre that consists of instrumental remixes of existing recordings. So it's achieved by manipulating and reshaping the recordings, emphasizing the drum and bass parts. So when you listen to a lot of modern down tempo,

you trace all of that back to the dub that was coming out of reggae in the 60s. Particularly a guy named Lee Perry. He went by Scratch Perry. Lee Scratch Perry. Richard Dorfmeister listed him as one of his favorite dub reggae artists.

And so Pat Matheny, Tatayat Tatasca, they sampled this track that we're going to play for you in one of their songs off of JAC, the name of the album. So Q, what do you got? There's a really cool website called Who Sampled.com. If you're curious about where,

a sample comes from and a song that you really like. Chances are this website's going to have the original recording for that sample. It's pretty cool. And you can even like jump straight to the part of the song that has that sample on the website. And so I thought for our sidetrack, I would check out some samples that Toska pulled from. And Pat Mathini came up, his album Watercolors, which came out in 1977, Tosca sampled just a tiny bit of his guitar work for their song Rondo Acapricio. This is actually one of my favorite Tosca songs, dude. It's good, man. It definitely keeps you interested the entire time.

There's so much stuff that goes on to this song. Yeah, yeah, I love it. And things that come out of left field almost, you know. Yeah. So for this side track, we're going to kind of play bits and pieces of each song just to kind of hone in on the sample from Pat Mathini. So first we're going to play just, we're going to play a clip from the Pat Mathini song that's sampled in the Toska track. This song is called Ice Fire. It is track two off of Pat Matthini's.

second studio album Watercolors, which came out in 1977. So it goes on like that for like six minutes. Yeah. So, you know, very light, quiet,

almost like a meditative, like jazz song, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's the whole album. It's really pretty. It's not even really, it's not even really jazz. You know what I mean? It's not like a traditional jazz.

No. It's very, I don't want to say fusion because it's not blending like blues and jazz together or anything like that. It's just almost like ambient guitar music. You know what I mean? It's nice. I like it a lot. Yeah, I really like it too. I mean, I know the name Pat Mathini, but I never really got into him.

I just know that he's a super well-respected jazz guitar player. Yeah, he's extremely versatile. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right, so we heard that. Now, I think it's going to, when we play this Toska song, it's going to jump out immediately. But what's interesting is to hear what they do with it. You know what I mean?

And that's what's always, like, it's always interesting to me when you hear these samples to be like, number one, you know, well, not so much with songs, but like when they sampled, and you'll hear a lot of this in this song as well, when they sample the vocal stuff. Like, how did they come across it and what made them think, hey, this will be good in one of our songs? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, let's play it first because, yeah, I kind of want to get into this too, but I want everyone to be able to hear it first. So here's the clip from the Tosca track off of JAC. It is track one.

It's called Rondo Acapricio. In case you missed it, the Pat Mathini sample came. in around 25 seconds into the song. And I've actually got, here, dude, let's do this for all of our, our dear listeners. All right, so here's the Pat Metini sample from Ice Fire. Here's the part from that song that they sampled. Okay, so that tiny little guitar line, they don't even use that entire part. They just...

Yeah, it's really, it's the first chord and the last chord of that sample. It's just the first little strum. Yeah, and they just echo it. Well, we'll see it, but it's a, it is a chord, like it's a chord change. So it's like the first chord. Yeah. And then the second chord, they isolate those and then play the next part. Yeah, so here's the part from Rondo Acapriccio that samples that Pat Metini line.

Right there, that's it. Well, then they play the next one, though, too. But they drop it down. Yeah. Yeah. So they might be working with that. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, they might be working with just that one initial.

chord and then they modify it and drop it down because I think of the Panadini song but yeah either way it's like you know they took it they obviously they're adding some delay to it that's why it's kind of echoing

but that's it and that's all they did and it plays throughout the rest of the song it's just a tiny little part here's what I always wonder dude um because I've tried to I've dabbled in making sample based music it's not fucking easy for

one. But like, I always wonder, so for this track, Rondo Acapricio, did they, did they start with this Pat Mathini sample? You know, like, what, what is it that started them down the path to making this song? Well, like, when you listen to the, the, the killer bass line that plays throughout this whole song, I feel like, I feel like the Pat Mathini song, um, I had to come first. Hold on. Let's talk about this for a second. Did they have this song, the baseline, did they start with the baseline and then look for samples that had, that were in the key of the song?

You know what I mean? I doubt it, dude. Well, maybe because it's either, it's either. The reason I say that is because the baseline is playing the same notes, I guess, as the Pat Metaney song. Like, like. Yeah. It's, you know, they exist. But that makes me think that they started with the Mathini sample.

You know, you don't remember. But, well, here we go. Let me read this quote. Let's go back to this magazine interview that they did. We talked about it in the full-length episode. This is future music. This was an interview back in March of 2015. They are asked,

okay, listen to this. So the interview question is, how are your roles separated in the studio? And Richard Dorfmeister says, traditionally, I take care of the programming, but there's no strict separation in the studio. Over the years, we've developed a special workflow. First, we make up a draft built around a basic idea

that can be a bass riff, a sequencer line, or whatever, and this early stage is very much driven by emotions and feelings. Then we add guitars or keyboards and try to save the best parts, taking care of the recording quality to avoid unnecessary history noise. Okay, a lot of this. is unnecessary to what we're talking about. But what he says is like, what did they say right there? They start with a basic idea like a baseline or whatever.

And then they build on it and build on it. So yeah, we'll never know if they heard that methane track and worked from there. But my thinking is they probably didn't because especially when you hear all they did was grab that one chord. So it's almost like, you know, they wanted that chord to be played. it's hard to say man because you know think about how crazy that is too it's like all right well we got this killer bass line um and we want to play this chord and they can just play it on the piano what's stopping them from just playing it on the piano and making it or just grabbing a guitar and just playing

it and strumming it you know it's crazy that's what makes down tempo so cool to me right i mean something as random is uh just a random pat matthini song a pat mithy track from 77. Yeah. And they're like, hey, let's just grab this one chord. You know, it's crazy. I mean, if you hop back on that website I was talking about, who sampled. Yeah.

Just, yeah, go to the Tosca section on that website and just look at the fucking shit that they've sampled and some of their songs. It's just so random. I mean, it blows my mind. Well, so actually, I went and found another interview. this magazine called Flont, Flant Magazine. It's like a culture, art, fashion music magazine. And it was just a really quick, like, really casual interview.

They just took some photos from their studio and, like, shared it with Flant. And there's a picture of this giant, kind of a modular shelving system with a bunch of records in it. And they just say, you know, they're basically going from, like, thing to thing and just explaining each photo. And also, we have a lot of records here. good to dig in the crates and find pure gold occasionally. So it's part of the studio. They have a ton of records in the studio. And so, you know, we know that they were heavily influenced by a lot of stuff.

So he probably just grabbed his methane and put it on. And maybe was listening for that chord, you know, that note. Because if they wanted to add that note to that song, you know. But like I said, we'll never, we'll never know. Right. But yeah, it's... I gotta talk about the vocal piece that they sampled. Because really, that's one of my favorite samples in a Toska song. The female...

I'm just gonna play it again, and I'll play it right at the part where she starts talking. I just love it so much, man. Might as well just fucking play it. There has just two in to this program. This is Linton City. Where the fuck do they go? get that, dude. What is that?

Dude, I'm trying to find it. Like, I'm trying to type that into Google, like those exact words. Just those exact words. Yeah, like. And it just takes me to toss. Good morning to everyone who tuned into this program. Yeah. I'm going to read you this poem in Mandarin.

Yeah. So from what, from that quote that you read to me from that interview, that makes me think they, they go searching for these cool vocal clips last, it seems like. If they, you know, if they start with something is like a simple bass line

and then they add guitar lines and stuff afterwards, it makes me think that they probably after that go and look for cool little vocal tracks add on there. Yeah, so that was Richard's answer and Rupert adds on to that. He says, I often bring pre-recorded material with me. sounds from field recordings or sessions I did with musicians or piano or bass recordings,

etc, etc. So yeah. So yeah. Definitely listen to that whole song and we'll have it on the playlist, the February playlist. Listen to Rondo Acapricio all there through because that sample, it keeps going throughout the whole song. It's really cool. And then they add that really strange male vocal sample too. I don't even remember what he's talking about.

It almost sounds like an opera Italian guy or something. He's yelling almost. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really strange. But yeah, again. Yeah, there's a lot of great songs on JAC. I really like that album a lot.

Yeah, yeah. And as we said in the Tosca episode, you know, this is what we meant when we were, or what, I guess, with that quote where it's like, you can put this on in the background and just let it play. or, you know, when you dig a little bit deeper

and you try to find these samples and stuff, that's when it starts to get really interesting and you start to really appreciate like what goes into making a Tosca song or a great down-tipo song, you know what I mean? Just the fact that like, like we said, it's literally one chord from a Pavithani song in 1977. It's nuts, man.

Right, it is great. Yeah, right. So we know for a fact, yeah, they sampled one tiny little snippet from this Pat Mathini song. I mean, this website, I wish it would have done more homework for me. But that's all that they have listed under samples for Rondo Acacapricio. In other words, they don't fucking know. No one knows.

I mean, it's all, it's a crowdsourced website. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Like if you know, if you recognize a sample, you can, you can submit, you know, links to the actual track and stuff on that website. So that's all they have for this song But who knows, man They could have sampled the baseline They could have sampled the drums

And they probably did Yeah I mean I think the baseline I bet you is theirs but But yeah you never know You never know You never know But that's what I That's what I love about downtown

But that's what I really appreciate it And that's something that totally Just went over my head when I was younger You know we were kind of talking about that In the Tosca episode Like we were too young to really appreciate electronic music when we were growing up. But that's because I didn't really understand how, like, it's not easy, dude.

It's really not easy to make music like this. But one thing, so one thing that I've noticed, the older I get, the more I start to branch out with music back when I was young, young it was mostly rock. That was it. The older I get, I think if you're a music lover, that's just naturally what's going to happen. You know what I mean? because, you know, and I usually go through, like, cycles where it's like, all right, I'm in a heavy, like, uh, jazz phase and I'm listening to a lot of jazz. And then I'll switch over to something else. But, uh, I think, I think that's what down tempo, that's why down tempo is so great. It's because you're going to hear, you're going to hear jazz. You're going to hear. It's like, it's like being able to listen to a jazz, jazz and electronic mix together. You know what I mean? Or, you know, uh, dub thrown in there or with Tuska, especially. I mean, I mean, you know, They have so many different genres that bleed in and make up a Tosca track.

You know what I mean? Yeah. All right. So that was just a, usually we don't play another track from the same artist for the side track. But I'm kind of glad that we got to play another Tosca track, you know, especially Rondo A Capricio because I'm with you. That's one of my favorite Tosca tracks as well. And you got to hear that.

I love it. And, you know, you got to hear some Pat Matheny as well, which is cool. we would never have talked about that album I don't think No way So again it's like Dude and listen man

Look okay Let's just look dude As a music fan I'm just gonna get a little excited here This is what I love about music dude Like Yeah Pat Mathini I know his name

You know he's a jazz guitar player if I didn't decide to go dig a little deeper on on some Tosca samples, you know, well, for one, if I didn't have that website. But like, that's what I love so much about music. It's just never ending, like, the stuff that you discover. Yeah, I agree, man. I'm going to listen to this watercolor's album all the way through for sure. And I'm probably going to check out more of Pat Mathini's,

albums now and he's got a ton of them man uh you know it's just it's just never ending and that's what i love about music and i hope that we have enough listeners out there that share that love for music um i just love it dude and i think we should probably let's close out this sidetrack episode with another so there's another really great song on this pat metheny album um that i really like It's got like a, it's Spanish guitar, really. It's called Oasis. Flamingo. It's on the album after Ice Fire.

It's really good. And, yeah, we can close out, close out this sidetrack with that song. So that should do it for us midweek here. Again, like Travis mentioned, we're going to dive into Crosby Stills and Nash, their first studio album, which is self-titled, right? That's correct. That's going to be fun, man. I'm excited, dude.

Really? I'm really excited because I haven't, I never gave this album a good solid listen all the way through. I listened to a couple of songs on there just while I had time to a couple days ago. And I, man, I loved it, dude. I'm, I'm going to listen to the rest of it in the next couple days. It's just really enjoyable music to listen to.

Yeah. And, and at the same time, and we'll dive into this. It's, these are protest songs. Some of them are protest songs. You know what I mean?

This was, this was that era. You know what I mean? This was that time in music where, where these artists were like keyed in to the, to the issues and rallying behind protests and stuff and starting protests. It's just like Cretem's Clearwater, dude. Yeah, exactly.

It's, that's what I'm saying, man. It's just that decade where music was, was about getting a message across, you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. So that should do it for us this week. Check back in a few days. We'll have our next episode up on Crosby Stills and Nash. And again, we're going to close out this episode with another track from that Pat Mathini album.

Again, the album is called Watercolors. It's his second studio album. It came out in 1977. and this is, I believe, track three on the album. It's called Oasis. All right. Thanks for listening. My name's Quentin.

My name is Travis. All right. Take care. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to lux beauty and fragrance sets. Our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holt's holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. You may have heard of the sex cult nexium.

and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack. But she's never told her side of the story until now. People assume that I'm like this pervert. My name is Natalie Robamed. And in my new podcast, I talked to Allison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma at other people? I don't even know how to answer that question. Allison after Nexium from CBC's Uncover is available now on Spotify.