Listening: Bandcamp
Contest info: website
Info
The twentieth anniversary installment of the Sample Pack Context just wrapped up with the album release, and it was also the twentieth contest! Although it was kind of just a coincidence that that lined up like that, as it’s an irregular thing that doesn’t actually have an annual schedule.
For the anniversary, there were no new samples chosen for this contest; instead, submitters picked up to three samples from any of the previous nineteen contests. There were a lot to choose from! After duplicates were removed there were somehow exactly one hundred chosen, at least one from every previous contest (with some last-minute wrangling to make that happen). There weren’t any funny sample categorization shenanigans this time like in earlier events, just an unsorted samples.zip.
None of my absolute top favorite artists participated in this round, and possibly as a result this was one of my least favorite contests since the 2019 revival, but there’s of course still a bunch of really great tracks here. I want to especially shout out new contributor alexa sophia, who contributed several rhythmically and harmonically chaotic fusiony pieces that all rule a lot.
Recommended tracks:
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“Shattered Ruins of Light and Dark” (clairebun) is a journey that makes heavy use of a sample from a Kirby 64 song I’ve always liked; some people were speculating this was by Toby Fox, which was really funny to me (though it wouldn’t be unprecedented…)
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“it finds its way home” (DrTapeworm) is in some nice bouncy 7
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“as the crow flies” (alexa sophia) has a nice syncopated countermelodic section starting at 1:03 that reminds me a little of Soshiro Hokkai
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“supah ronald kart part 2: toroidal fusion plant” (blower) has some absolutely smokin’ sax holy moly
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“Big Steppy” (PROTODOME) was the somewhat expected contest winner and riffs off one of the most famous jazz pieces ever
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“catlaunch” (NardInYourYard) is some fun UK techno to launch a cat to(?????)
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“Lunar” (Frieda Charlotte Wray) just has a mixture of sounds in it that I like, that’s all
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