8/22/05 Job & His Brethren

Last night I did some work on the track ‘The Amazing Tenacity Of Job & His Brethren.’ The tune was co-written by Glenn Stella, a producer I did some recording with. The original computer recording he did had a crazy sample built into the rhythm track.
I’m not sure what the sample was, but I had no access to it and therefore couldn’t reproduce it.

I tried a variety new sample sounds in its place but nothing seemed to work. Then a few weeks ago I was watching the movie Skeleton Key. They had a lot of voodoo drumming and singing from old scratchy records in the movie. It reminded me of Moby’s one semi-original idea of using samples from old blues records in his techno music. It seemed like what I needed for Job.

So yesterday I went into my old field recordings of back porch gospel singers and made a sample of an old black woman singing “Oh Lord.” The sample fit the bill perfectly. It gave the song just a touch of creepiness that sounds both modern and harkens the past. The track is meant to merge modern digital sounding rock and the old time blues and gospel spirit, so the sample really helped get the mood across.