Beats + Pieces Vol. 87
My 2010 interview with Samiyam and other odds + ends
Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes, it takes completely different forms.
THROWBACK FILES: SAMIYAM INTERVIEW
Back in 2010, I interviewed the American beats guy, Samiyam, for a now-defunct New Zealand street press magazine called Groove Guide. The reason for our conversation was to promote a tour of New Zealand. At the time, I was at the absolute peak of my interest in “beats”. In many ways, it was a good year. Thinking back, I’m pretty sure I saw Flying Lotus and Leonard Cohen perform in the same week. Anyway, here’s the interview.
A master of the shimmering, synthetic, and rhythmically stunted, Brainfeeder/Hyperdub-affiliate Samiyam’s work can be defined artistically by relationships. Firstly, with music, secondly, with the intensely talented modern beat musicians (Flying Lotus, Ras G, etc.), he moves within both the L.A. of the real world and the uniquely spiked L.A. of the internet, a stumbling digital soundworld now participated by beatmakers across the planet. On ‘Return’, his breakout single on Hyperdub records, Samiyam takes west coast referencing synthesiser lines, twisting them into a thoroughly alien format, and concurrently impregnating the sound-form with drunken post-boombap drums. The result is the kind of eternally hypnotic head-nod you could listen to all night, which Samiyam probably did while making it.
Right now, though, Samiyam has just finished up dinner at a diner in L.A. Born and raised in Ann Arbour, Michigan, Samiyam was as he explains, surrounded by music from day one. “My dad was always listening to Jazz,” he remembers. “So I was always hearing all kinds of Jazz, everything from Traditional to crazy Free Jazz… I think a bunch of my influences come from listening to all the crazy Jazz stuff my dad was always playing.
A kid whose parents could only punish him for being naughty by confiscating his boombox, Samiyam also remembers being influenced by Michael Jackson’s music and recounts singing along to the big tunes and mimicking MJ’s dance moves in the mirror at age six. Captured by Hip-Hop in his teens (“I really got into dudes like DJ Premier and Alchemist,” he says) at the end of high school, Samiyam purchased an MPC and began attempting to write like his heroes. Eventually moving onto a Boss Dr Sample SP-303, with this shift in hardware came a shift in musical mindset. “That was when I started really feeling like I was making the ideas that were in my head,” he says.
Obsessed with “seventies [and eighties] RnB and Funk,” having been programmed to approach music in a looped format by his years of Hip-Hop fixation, Samiyam found himself listening for the “one four-bar part that sounded so good I wanted to hear it repeat for three minutes.” Applying this to his arrangements, he formed what he calls “a friendship of the new millennium” with L.A. beat auteur Flying Lotus when the two discovered each other’s music online.
Now based in L.A., which he describes as “Full of people I felt like I could really get along with,” Samiyam, a key member of Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder movement, has performed across America, Europe, and Asia over the last few years. This September, Samiyam will make his New Zealand debut. “I’ve had so many people hitting me up about it online,” he says. “I’m pretty happy about it all.”
TEST PRESSING:
In my latest for Test Pressing, I looked at new old releases from Uptown Funk Empire, SY3, Al Mati, Th Blisks. Check them out here.High-narrative slow-jam
WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:
“High narrative slow jam sleaze from New Zealand’s King Softy.”
Qendresa’s got that smoked out street soul vibe. I love it.
I hope you like Maria Sommerville, remixed.
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:
Bob Weir’s Cosmic Touch: The inimitable Bobby Ace played guitar alongside Jerry Garcia for over three decades. His unique style and merry personality helped shape the sound and spirit of the Grateful Dead, and his lifelong dedication to the band helped make them immortal. Jesse Jarnow for Pitchfork.
Art in the Age of Intimidation: From EXIT Festival to Berlin’s fallout over Gaza, political pressure has imperilled state funding for the arts. With the US on the brink, Chloe Lula asks: is this the end of cultural soft power? For RA, Chloe Lula.
Beyond pain: Palestinian electronic music’s shifting soundscape: Six electronic musicians, producers and DJs from Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem share how their artistic outlook and practice has been affected by genocide and occupation. In conversation with Shams Hanieh, they speak about the struggle to maintain creativity in the face of immeasurable destruction, the importance of portraying their cultural roots, and their desire to resist narratives of victimhood. For DJ Mag.
No judgement: How Normie Corp turned online raving into Vancouver’s liveliest queer club night: Born during the pandemic as a Zoom party, Normie Corp now brings its wild and hyper-specific themed parties to venues across Vancouver, uplifting its community of “normies-turned-creatives”. We meet Normie Corp’s founders to find out more. For Mixmag, Gemma Ross.
FIN.