An invitation + 4 sample flip challenges

Hello,

Today I have an invitation for you and 4 tracks I made for something I do quite regurlarly: sample flip challenges.

Before diving in, I’d like to welcome all the subscribers from my old newsletter that have been transferred here ! Yes, it’s KOYL here, and I hope I’m not writing to your spam folder.

and I’m inviting you to an online listening party that will take place the day before ! (Thursday June 1st)

It will be on YouTube premiere. We will listen to the whole EP together and have a chat.

It will take place at at 10PM CEST (Paris time) / 9PM BST (London) / 4PM EDT (New York) / 1PM PDT (Los Angeles) / 6AM AEST (Sydney) and will last about 25 minutes.

»»» INTERGALACTIC PRE-RELEASE LISTENING PARTY «««

Click the link to get to the video and click “notify me“ so you won’t miss it. I really hope to see you there !

I’ve prepared a little campaign to announce the release and share excerpts. That will begin tomorrow, mainly on Instagram.

Sample flip challenges are events that are organized by several beatmaker communities, in which they give a sample (it may be a whole existing track or a loop/set of loops) for anyone to “flip” (aka: transform into a new piece of music).

Then, there is a listening event, during which all the flips are played.

It’s something that has been quite popular online since Covid. It’s a great way to meet other beatmakers and improve your skills using sample material you wouldn’t necessarily go for.

A year ago, I started to participate to the ones done by the Koala Beatcast (a community gathering around the “Koala sampler’, an iOS app that is both simple to use and capable of creating full tracks), and more recently to some done by “The Beatcast”.

When I do those, my personal goal (so far) has been to mainly use the provided sample or song and turn it in something that has nothing to do with the original material. I also try to work fast on these, focusing on ideas rather than high production standards. I’m not too concerned about genre either: it’s all exploration and fun.

I’ve accumulated quite a bunch of those flips: you can listen and watch them all in this playlist:

»»» SAMPLE FLIP CHALLENGES YOUTUBE PLAYLIST «««

Here are the 4 most recent ones I made:

This one is a special one. It was done by the Koala Community in collaboration with Ana Solo, an artist based in New Zealand and her project Heart4Earth.

I won’t do justice to the project and her work if I try to describe it: it’s better than you read about it directly from her: https://heart4earth.com/

We all had to record an outdoor sound, all sounds were then sent to every participants who had to use those to make their track. There’s no required amount of samples you have to use, you can only use 1, but I chose to only use the provided samples, except for the bass line… and indeed, a lot of samples were bird sounds.

Another one for the Koala Beatcast. It was a “theme week” (the rule is you choose your own track to flip according to the given theme), and the theme was ROCK.
After trying something like 7 tracks with no success, I found the right one and turn it into this dark triphop beat.

This was my first participation to The Beatcast for season 3 Episode 10. The sample was a classic soul interlude.. it was hard not to do a straight boombap beat with it !

This latest one is for the Koala Beatcast #121. It was another community sample pack (people in the community provide a sample). The first version was so bland and lifeless, I remade it into this 2-Step / Garage joint.

(told ya I needed a title for this section, so I’m trying stuff)

Despite the fact that I probably have 10 books that I’m currently reading, I’ve just started this one: “Outside the confort zone: from Massive Attack to Banksy / The story of agroup of artists, their city, Bristol, and their revolutions”

This approach of talking about several art forms, people, politics and history of a place, is very cool, and in this case, very well done. I think Bristol might be the home town of my spirit animal or something…

***

And now for something completely different…

I can’t say I listen to a lot of new “rock” acts nowadays. I still listen to the records I grew up with and rarely take time to discover what’s new, apart maybe in the drone & doom metal, some stoner rock & some post-rock… Each time I gave it a try, I only find bands that are either recreating what has already been done (nostalgia pays apprently) or either are soooo clean, and nice, and eager to please…

It took me 10 seconds when I heard Djunah in the Bandcamp podcast “The Metal Show” to notice that Djunah was different… And by “notice”, I mean, like you’ve just received a hard slap in the face..

I’m not sure how to describe their style: Post-hardcore ? Post-metal ? I don’t know, but my first impression was “Oh this is the really angry PJ Harvey’s daughter”. Uneven meters, Heavy guitars, intricate guitar & drum parts, Raw & personal lyrics, etc… Just hit play and see/hear it for yourself !

Notice that they are only 2 on stage, because, Donna, on top of singing & playing guitar, also plays the bass lines with her feet ! (you’ll find videos about her setup on YouTube, most notably her Premier Guitar Rig Rundown)

Their latest record “Femina Furens” was recorded at God City by Kurt Ballou (of Converge). They are on tour right now in the US and when I asked Donna about Europe, she answered “working on it”…

That’s all for this one…

See you next Friday here, or on Thursday, in the chat, for the YouTube premiere !

Have a great week.