Thru You – YouTube sampling
6 Mar
A friend recently put me on to Kutiman, an Israeli musician and artist who has some fantastic releases. Kutiman uses found footage from YouTube to create original compositions. He is literally sampling from YouTube; taking drums from one video, vocals from another video, bass from another and so on, cutting them up and arranging them into a new composition. His arrangements are so precise that I was skeptical at first, however he includes links to the original footage in his credits, allowing listeners/viewers to check for themselves. This also gives exposure to the authors of the samples, increasing hits to their videos.
Cutting up video footage isn’t anything revolutionary, but the idea that YouTube could be used a pool of potential samples is pretty intriguing. YouTube is not not only archival but also an accurate manifestation of pop culture. All copyright issues aside, having such assets at their disposable is pretty amazing for artists.
It’s also creating unlikely collaborations. The artist who post their videos on YouTube are out looking for exposure, they want to get their videos seen and music heard. I would be interested in hearing what the original authors think about having their work sampled. In a way this method gives more credit to the artists, by actually showing them perform,rather than sampling straight audio.
Check out all of the videos here:
http://thru-you.com
slim likes this
Yeah, it’s sweet. I like how it also becomes a narrative of sorts w/ the use of visuals.
He’ll show video of an empty piano bench or drum set and you’ll be like “Oh shit, here comes the break down!”
It adds another layer to the anticipation. Pretty awesome.