Photo credit: Laura McCluskey
O’Flynn’s made quite a name for himself in recent years. This hardly comes as a surprise, of course, given his breakout was spurred by the likes of James Blake, Four Tet, Denis Sulta, and other renowned characters in the indie electronic space. In 2019, his inaugural album effort ‘Aletheia’ arrived to critical acclaim, its singles quickly becoming club and live stream staples. As the year winds down, O’Flynn’s momentum remains high. He was most recently brought back into the Ninja Tune fold, with the label tasking him to remix BRONSON’s hit single, ‘VAULTS’. The result is nothing short of class.
Perhaps one of O’Flynns most distinguishing creative traits is his clever use of sampling, specifically with a world beat influence. Inspired by the musical flavors all over the world and his travels to-date, the musician’s music often bursts with eclectic, multicultural influence while remaining respectful to the places where he draws his sound from. Recently, he paid his own success forward in helming a fundraising campaign for Ugandan artist and Blip Discs labelmate Swordman Kitala, who fell ill with typhoid fever earlier this year. He and other Blip Disc alumni Ehke and K-Lone came together to create a two-piece record containing re-works of Swordman’s material, with the significance of the project palpable through its airwaves.
We wanted to dive more into the music that drives and inspires O’Flynn, and so to celebrate the release of his BRONSON remix, we had him pick 10 of his favorite sample-based pieces.
1. J Dilla – Waves
“Taken from one of the best albums I’ve ever heard. A sampling masterpiece. Whoever hasn’t heard ‘Donuts’ needs to go and listen.”
2. RJD2 – June
“One of the best to do it as well. Taken from the album ‘Deadringer’ which is a must-listen. I could have picked any track from this album but I especially love the drums in this.”
3. Four Tet – Hands
“I think one of Four Tet’s finest tracks. This is a level of track I constantly aspire to try and reach.”
4. Madvillain – Accordion
“Off the timeless ‘Madvillainy’ album and one of the most unique hip hop tracks I’ve heard.”
5. Amon Tobin – Saboteur
“Amon Tobin has a crazy ability to manipulate sounds. A simple sampled drum loop is used as the backbone for the track, in true Amon Tobin style – intense and contrasting sounds are thrown perfectly around it.”
6. Flying Lotus – Melt
“For me, this is the perfect beat. I love the effects that make it sound like it’s coming from a different world.”
7. Madlib – Red, Black And Green Showcase
“One of the masters of sampling, I love pretty much all of Madlib’s music but this is one of my favorites.”
8. Bonobo – 1009
“From one of the best electronic albums ever made, ‘Black Sands’. All of the samples complement each other perfectly in this.”
9. Burial – Pirates
“Burial crafted himself his own world of sound, lucky for us we get to go there as well.”
10. Justice – Phantom Pt. 2
“One of my first main influences sounds like a twisted blend of Heavy Metal and Electronic. Justice’s style of sampling is really interesting – using lots of tiny audio clips chopped into the track, giving a crazy detailed effect.”
O’Flynn’s take on BRONSON’s “VAULTS” is out now. Stream and buy here.
