The samples of High Contrast

We continue to learn about the sources of inspiration of jungle and drum‘n’bass musicians. Without any words, requests or greetings, the YouTube channel Original Jungle Samples tells us what kind of instruments and voices we hear in our favourite tracks. Today—High Contrast.

“I was 16/17 when I got in to the music first, I had a crummy pair of decks and a demo of Cubase and just went from there. I was only into films before that time, not into any modern music, I only liked film soundtracks. The soundtracks have had a definite influence on what I do as have the keyboard lessons I had for about 10 years when I was younger, got me into chords and the chords sounds. My mum had a Motown CD box set that, when I first started messing around with music and Cubase, I grabbed and started going through it. I really didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t really know about dance music, I just knew that people sampled old stuff to make it. So I started looking for loops to use and began collecting soul music from there.

I’m quite cut throat in that I’m mainly just looking for things to sample, otherwise I’ll just end up with such a vast, endless collection of vinyl. I try to only buy records that I want to sample. It’s like an addiction, finding old samples. And generally I’m looking for stuff that hasn’t been used too much.”