If you’re a certain age and have been round the block like I have working as a pro (ish) media composer. There would have been a point at which you were faced with a show temp’d with Cliff Martinez’ score for Solaris. Not the Tarkovsky one, the one with Clooney. Cliff famously used calypso steel drums to create his own vision of the galaxy, and everyone wanted a piece of it. The pieces used from that score are everywhere, indeed its one of those times when people know the score better than the film it accompanied (think American Beauty and The Mission). I couldn’t afford (or indeed lift up my stairs) a full array of hammered petrol barrels into my central London studio. So went rogue in the kitchen instead. I sampled pots, pans, glasses and a number of mixing bowls. From this I learned an important sampling lesson. The least interesting sounding objects can make for the most engaging sampled instruments. Its all about an engaging complex set of harmonics at the very beginning of any given note, followed by a purer tone with a clear fundamental and not too many “other notes”. This thing sounded totally unremarkable played in the kitchen. But as a sample instrument… Well it’ll defo be in my top 5 most used personal samples. Enjoy! C x

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Christian Henson

Stephen Tallamy

DS programming