#808 state

808 State, Quadrastate, (12" EP), State 004, Creed Records, 1989 [Covet The Cover]

So I brought the Tyranny >For You< album home, and was confused. Where was the iconic bass synth part I remembered “Rhythm of Time” having? What was there was amazing, but I couldn’t have imagined that missing bit, could I?

I told my one raver friend my tale, doing the “dun dun dun dunnnnnn” bit for him, and he laughed and pointed me in the direction of “Cübik” and the missing piece. I felt humbled, but was glad to have him in my life. A year or so later he committed suicide, and “Cübik” always makes me miss him and smile at that memory.

Anyway, “Cübik” just came up on a playlist, so here I am sharing this. Here’s the two songs I once thought were combined. If I had any sort of mixing skills I would make that happen, but lucky for the world I do not.

Don't mistake this for me actually liking this song, because it's overcrowdedly not good at all, but man, do I *really* love the sample that was used here. UK teen pop trio Atomic Kitten pulled a piece of a score from a classic 1950s western called The Big Country that was done by composer Jerome Moross*, and the only other song I've ever heard use this sample is 808 State and MC Tunes' terrific Manchester rap track, "The Only Rhyme That Bites," from 1990. Apparently this epic, swirling, soaring orchestral sample has only been used one other time, in a song that was produced by Japanese techno guy Takkyu Ishino in '96, and I can't believe that this Atomic Kitten song from 2000 is the third and final one, because it feels like such an especially absurd pull; like, what on earth is this pretty obscure sample doing on a song like this whose target audience was essentially 9 year olds?? The producers really didn't have to try this hard.

*It's actually a sample of the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra performing the Jerome Moross composition, which no one else has ever sampled either...