Todd Edwards & the microsample: speed & spirituality in UK Garage.

Harkins, Paul

Abstract

My paper will examine the role of New Jersey producer Todd Edwards within the development of UK Garage by focussing on his use of microsamples which Simon Reynolds describes as a “technique of cross-hatching brief snatches of vocals into a melodic-percussive honeycomb of blissful hiccups, so burstingly rapturous it’s almost painful to the ear.” The vowels are cut and stretched to the extent that meanings become unclear and enable Edwards to embed subtle spiritual messages which are in stark contrast to the more hedonistic contexts in which his music was enjoyed by London ravers and pirate radio listenters. DJs in Garage clubs adjusted the pitch control on turntables to increase the speed of songs which were deemed to slow for the dancefloor much to the disappointment of the producer himself whose experience and understanding of his own computer based grooves was very different

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Mediation, Movement and Microrhythm in Groove-Based Music Workshop
• Start Date: Oct 18, 2007
• End Date: Oct 20, 2007
• Publication Date: Nov 18, 2007
• Deposit Date: Mar 4, 2008
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: Todd Edwards; UK Garage; computer based grooves; spirituality; vocals; hedonistic contexts; pitch control
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/2377
• Publisher URL: http://www.hf.uio.no/imv/forskning/forskningsprosjekter/