Keri Chang Sheds Light On Spl
I never thought I’d ever say that I was thankful for the movie, Mortal Kombat, but after interviewing drum-and-bass/dubstep producer/DJ, Sam Pool, a.k.a. SPL, I’ll go out on that limb and say, “Thank you, Mortal Kombat” for introducing Sam to electronic music back in the fourth grade. Even if he was mostly kidding. (Which I’m sure he mostly was.)
Anyway… everyone? This is Sam. Sam, this is everyone. Have you met Sam Pool? SPL? Owner of Hollow Point/Lost Soul Recordings, producer of bangin’ vinyl since ’05 and general, all-around super cool dude? He’s a good one to know. I met Sam a while back here in the Portland club environ and he is for sure a fave on and off-stage. He’s a guy who believes in loving what you’re doing, names Eminem or Young Jeezy as his dream collaborators and disagrees with me that dubstep is “dude music”.
When asked about where he draws inspiration, Pool garners ideas from across time and genre and takes a very organic approach to creating music. At any given time, his personal listening taste may vary to rock/metal to ambient IDM to electro but to compose he says, “…it’s more about messing with my gear and seeing what I come up with. I accidentally came up with [“Sins of the Streets Revisited” and I thought it rocked so I went with it…I think all the best sounds come from experimentation… or “happy accidents” as I like to call them…”
The first time I ever heard SPL play was at Subs Up in Your Guts at Dante’s in early ’09. I was blown away by his balls-to-the-wall style and intense track selection. I asked him if he, like many DJs, plans out his set to which he replied, “Crowd reaction is the most influential factor on what I’m going to play… Pre-planned sets make me laugh to an extent. I don’t think that’s what DJing is about. I understand maybe having individual mixes between cuts that you practice but it doesn’t mean they will be appropriate at any given moment. The best things happen in the moment. It’s the surprises that make performing fun. Witnessing those surprises makes the best experience for me.”
In November, SPL released his self-titled 4-disc drum-and-bass debut album on his Lost Soul Recordings label. We should see another drum-and-bass EP sometime in March of this year as well as some digital releases before Pool gives the d&b a break to focus solely on his glitch-hop/dubstep label, Hollow Point. This is super exciting news at least for me but I’ll sit back and be patient because, as Sam quoted from The Princess Bride, “You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.”
http://lostsoulrecordings.com/
