ABSTRACT
The musical practice of microsampling provides convincing evidence that the recording studio tools of the post-modern era are also musical instruments, which create their own virtuosos rather than 'democratize the unequal distribution of brilliance'. As in musique concrete, small samples from sound sources such as recordings and radio are identified, extracted and rearranged to create new melodies and textures within musical compositions. The author sample hours of radio airwaves every morning and dissect fractions or seconds of them to a point where samples aren't recognizable. If Leclair and Edwards are both part of the broad church of house music, they are attached to quite different denominations. UK garage audiences in London clubs were experiencing the music in a social context where an interpretation of insatiable sexual or chemical desire may have seemed more appropriate. A crash introduces the microsample choir with its angelic sounding 'oohs' and an individual voice enters with much clearer lyrics.
