Sak's Music

Check out these amazing electronic musicians and DJ's:
Erasure
Plaid
Basement Jaxx
r.roo
Hot Chip
Orbital
The Crystal Method
The Shamen
Deep Forest
Photek
Delerium
Daft Punk
Nine Inch Nails

DJ SAK - Sak's Stuff

In some other life or dimension, I would have enjoyed producing electronic music as a full- or a part-time job (who needs stats). =) When I was a Junior at the University of Michigan, I had the opportunity to take a semester-long class in Electronic Music Composition through the Department of Performing Arts Technology in the Music School, taught by Erik Santos. As a part of this class, I produced five songs, described below:

1. Tetrisize. I loved the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) version of Tetris growing up. In particular, I always thought that the third music type (music type C, or music type 3, depending on what you read) was beautiful and relaxing. It turns out that this background music was actually a (loose) arrangement of Bach's French Suite No. 3 in B Minor. So I decided to compose my own synth-based interpretation of this music type, led by a conductor of a synthetic orchestra and backed by a synthetic choir. =)

2. Semi-normal Distribution. Something with more of a beat, this song was largely inspired by layered Orbital-type sequencing (with most of the layering in the middle of the song, leading to a normal dist...right), and includes an interpretation of the Q Basic remix of Deep Forest's Sweet Lullaby.

3. Ode to Funk. A (questionable) first foray into the world of sampling, pulling together many different rap tracks referring to funk and reverse-engineering many of the beats. Sounds pretty cobbled, but works in some places. =) Even layers in some synths so that the project requirements were met.

4. Singin' In The Rain. Not sure what inspired this one, aside from years of making weird noises that had my parents wondering about me. The "rain" is a repeated random sampling of clicks and bloops made with my mouth, and the synth-based tune is...some kind of weird (but original) happy strolling song. Don't ask. I just liked this particular synth patch!

5. My Religion. I do consider electronic music a kind of religion, which led to this title. This was my final project, and mashes together a whole bunch of different stuff. I wish that I had had more time to play around with this. Samples include Arrested Development, Madonna, The Shamen, Enya, Moby, and the Vengaboys, and I probably had too many factors being manipulated at once. =) Still, this was fun to work on, and I thank Erik for a great class that I would highly recommend to any students at U of M interested in Electronic Music.

Maybe someday I'll be able to play around with this stuff some more or set up a small studio (with all of my free time).

Any hardcore fans of Drum and Bass need to visit this site! The city of Detroit, where electronic music began, has also put together an amazing yearly celebration of electronic music known as the Movement, which takes place each year over Memorial Day Weekend.

I'm also a huge fan of the beautiful music of Sarah Brightman. I was fortunate enough to see her in concert recently in Detroit, and her vocal talents simply defy description.

Also, do yourself a favor and check out the music of Jars of Clay.

Some of my favorite rap artists, in no particular order:
Ice Cube
The Notorious BIG (RIP)
Snoop Dogg
The Beastie Boys (RIP MCA)
The Wu-Tang Clan (RIP ODB)
A Tribe Called Quest
Cypress Hill
Eminem
Dr. Dre
Jeru The Damaja
Insane Clown Posse



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