FFWD REW

Glockenspiels nose flutes and bubbles

DJ turns his back on the turntables and lays his hands on the autoharp

Pete Samples is the kid you played with in the sandbox who was always building his sand castles a little more intricate than you ever could. By no means was he ever re-inventing the wheel but whatever he came up with you always wished you thought of it first. Much like his electronica peers RJD2 and Caribou Montreal-based (by way of Winnipeg) DJ Pete Samples is playing in a much larger sandbox now. Gone are the days when a DJ’s arsenal consisted solely of two turntables and a microphone. Even with the expanded versatility of new technology though electronic music where choruses aren’t just rote musical gestures and live instruments aren’t just copy-pasted into loops is still hard to come by. After all how often can you find a sing-songy chorus in an electronica album never mind an auto-harp or a glockenspiel? “I don’t like to think of an instrument as being hip and deserving of being hated on” Samples says of his unusual instrumentation. “However I am aware that it happens. I generally use the old rule of thumb that if something sounds good that it should probably be used in a song regardless of certain connotations associated with the sound. The glockenspiel was used quite a lot on The Jumper Cables mainly for esthetic reasons. The album itself was inspired by all sorts of whimsical [sources] — Rube Goldberg for one. He was the inventor and cartoonist that created useless inventions that achieved a simple task in a roundabout method. I think that everyone can agree that the glockenspiel is the epitome of a whimsical instrument and is inherently child-like.” This whimsical quality runs through much of Pete Samples output first popping up on his debut album 2004’s An Unsent Letter . Though he wore his hip hop roots more clearly on his sleeve back then those influences were folded further back when Yours Makes Mine followed in 2007. The album was a departure from the beat-heavy sample-driven sounds of An Unsent Letter and though the Phil Spector wall-of-sound approach and live instrumentation were there in full force Samples chose the unassuming form of a mini album to show how far he’s come in the past year. The Jumper Cables may be small but it is mighty. Within the confines of five songs (and one secret track because he’s cheeky) Samples deftly masters shifts between the epic and the subdued. Most of all it’s fun — and Samples is having a blast touring Canada in support of the mini album. Instead of going solo he’s bringing along friend and musician John Ward to play guitar for a show with more than a few surprises. In fact the tour’s opening night surprised even Samples. “We played Duncan [B.C.] for the first night of the tour” says Samples “and there is no better place to kick off a tour than at [Duncan club] the Duncan Garage. Aside from the Garage being a bizarre and amazing space [club owner] Longevity John was quite the character [and he] made the trip out to Duncan worthwhile. Longevity John did not waste any time proving that he was an interesting fellow. He immediately pulled out his famed sterling silver nose flute and began to play some intense songs with his nose for us. He then gave us both our very own nose flutes and some lessons to take along on the tour so you can expect a little nose flute action at the show.” Those nose flutes will join the magic tricks balloons bubbles and “everything wonderful” in Samples’s stage show. Just like those days in the sand box Samples still seems one step ahead of the curve.

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