Turns out that one of the few truly monstrous tracks from Daft Punk’s latest, Human After All, almost completely jacks the opening of “Release the Beast,” a little known electro-funk stomper by 2-and-out late 70s jazz-funk outfit Breakwater. I felt compelled to post the original because although I knew that Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manual de Homem-Christ0 were big on sampling, I was surprised that they’d take something so massive and hardly change it while creating an entire song around it. Call me naive, but I leave that kind of uncreative, lazy production for Diddy and Kanye.
So here it is. For all you DJs out there, you can find this track (and other gargantuan jazz funk cuts) on the second of Breakwater’s two LPs, Splashdown, reissued on vinyl and CD and available at dustygroove.com.
“Release the Beast” and eleven other original tunes sampled by Daft Punk — including Chaka Khan, Sister Sledge, George Duke and more — can also be found on the soon-to-be-released Discovered: A Collection of Daft Funk Samples on Rapster Records. Sure to be a staple of every funk and soul DJ you know. And something that may be an eye-opener to the devout Daft Punkist who thought they were listening to wholly original songwriting.
RIYL: Fatback, Cameo, The Dazz Band, Stone City Band, Mary Jane Girls, Rick James
October 12th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Wow, that’s an extremely good find. Kudos.
October 12th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
And yet, when you listen for the first time to “Cola Bottle Baby” by Edwin Birdsong, it’s shocking how much ended up in “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” For that matter, it’s also surprising how close Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five’s “White Lines” is to Liquid Liquid’s “Cavern.” There are subtle distinctions between all these versions.
October 12th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Exactly, although I’m not sure if the sample used in Robot Rock was replayed. The Sugarhill House band replayed “Caverns” by Liquid Liquid, thus not legally sampling it. It’s something a lot of bands do, especially Lemon Jelly, which first comes to mind.
October 14th, 2007 at 1:10 am
check out palms out they got a section on all the daft punk samples
October 16th, 2007 at 8:09 am
love it!
October 26th, 2007 at 7:07 am
Everybody has been disliking them a lot for sampling like that. They did it perfectly. They give complete credit to Breakwater in the liner notes. Nobody read it until one person did and now they are consider uncreative.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:07 am
I don’t think I was necessarily saying they were uncreative. From my perspective, I had always had little issue with Daft Punk sampling. Not until I heard the original Breakwater however, did I realize HOW MUCH of the original formed the basis of “Robot Rock.” The song still bangs, but it was just an interesting illumination.
October 28th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
that was great. one of scissorkick’s best.
November 20th, 2007 at 5:21 am
slapped in the ears !
awesome
November 25th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
This news dates back to 2005 when the album came out…and way before then with Discovery. They have repeatedly taken a sample and turned it into something funky and breathed new life into it.
But, what do you think about sampling a sample a la Kanye West? I think that has even less integrity in being a creative musician.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:48 am
http://www.rapsterrecords.com/discovered/
is this what you guys are talking about? looks wicked