Rupert Parkes AKA Photek has a well documented obsession with martial arts, one that carried over into his music production in the mid-nineties. I've already covered two tracks, 'The Water Margin' and 'Ni-Ten-Ichi-Ryu', that show the far eastern influence in his sound but my DnB Advent Calendar gives me a great excuse to take a look at 'Seven Samurai'.
It is named after the Akira Kurosawa film about seven rōnin who are hired to protect a village of farmers from bandits. It opens with the sounds of a gong and tension-building metallic clangs while a multitude of other sinister sounds swirl around. The intricate drum production features reverse hits that resemble the swishing of swords. Talking to FACT back in 2011 Photek said:
“Some of the sounds, I made, some of them were different noises misrepresented. Like a weird texture running through a delay and then re-sampled, that to my mind sounded like in a [legendary Japanese film director] Akira Kurosawa movie when hundreds of samurai are moving in wooden armour and you’ve got that rattling and shuffling, and I’d make that out of something else to imitate that sound. Like what blues players used to do, to imitate a chugging train, play a riff that sounds like that."
The bassline is deep and dark and adds to the paranoid feel. The track is also well known for its use of the cymbal-heavy 'Tighten Up' break, so much so that the break is also known by the name Samurai. Photek's chopping of the break is exquisite, showing him to be a true master of his craft - check the section from around 4:45. Andy Skopes told Urban Essence about the first time he heard the track: "I wasn’t at all into DnB, but this totally changed my mind, the atmospherics, bassline and drums just slayed me".
The far eastern influence extends to the artwork by Mark Standere, who designed a number of sleeves for Photek and Source Direct. It features a grey misty scene influenced by Japanese impressionist printmaking while all the writing on the release is in Japanese script. The track featured on the first Form & Function compilation alongside a remix from Photek which you can check below: