British producer Matthew Herbert pushes the boundaries of sampling yet again with his upcoming new jazz album.
Matthew Herbert, known for his sampling of everyday objects, isn’t a household name in the genres he performs under (and there are quite a few) but he has collaborated with some big names – Bjork, Roisin Murphy of Moloko – and remixed the likes of R.E.M., Quincy Jones and Ennio Morricone. He’s no stranger to controversy so it seems fitting that he would take one of the most controversial acts on humanity – warfare – and make music out of it. How so? Well, for his upcoming jazz album, The End of Silence, the first part is made entirely from a 10-second recording made in Libya last year during the battle of Ras Lanuf. The recording was then stretched and mangled for all three tracks of the album, with Herbert and his band improvising over the remnants. It may not be to everyone’s taste but you can’t deny the creativity of sampling something as harsh and ill-fated as the sound of warfare and reconstituting it into another form of human expression – music.
Stream it below.