ARTIST INTERVIEW: FLATFOOT SAM “VEN A BAILAR”
“I was on holiday in Cornwall in August 2020 with my laptop, staying in an old lifeboat station looking out to sea in a beautiful cove. The sounds of the waves at the beginning and end are sampled from the cove. It’s an inspirational place. This tune flowed out down there,” said Flatfoot Sam.
“Ven A Bailar” has a sense of mystery and beauty reserved in the natural rhyme and magic in nature. From the cove evolved a beat that gradually became its own universe. Submerging into the magical space, a foreign holler emerged from a distance. As honest as nature intended, the chant drags you into its energy field. Into its history and cultures, landscapes, and people. It was moving and unforgettable in an explainable manner. It sticks with you and becomes something you always search for.
“I stumbled across the sample, which is a Spanish guy called Jordi Coza who sings in his song ‘Ven a Bailar mi ritmo popular.’ It means come and dance to my funky rhythm. It was the sound and honesty of the vocal that drew me to it,” said Flatfoot Sam, “It has made me realize the vibe of a lyric can be as important as the lyrical content, like when you’re listening to a French song with French lyrics and enjoying it as much, even though you don’t know most of the words.”
TripField is a fusion of Leftfield and Trip Hop. Flatfoot Sam accidentally invented it back in 2020, working on his debut single, “I Never Left.” With “Ven a Bailar” being the second single and the forthcoming “R3lease” later this year being the third, the tunes fit into a similar stylish approach, which Flatfoot Same decided to name it TripField.
“Generally, there are smooth and warm sub-bases (comes in at 00:48), breakbeats, and multi-layers sonics so that you can listen to it many times and keep hearing new stuff. It is meant to evoke emotional feelings. The tracks are general sub 100 bpm, and whether they are light or darker, they are normally slightly melancholy. There is often a rave-influenced section of the track. Like in Ven a Bailar, the build at 02:40 and drop at 03:00 have an old skool feel to them without changing the overall vibe too much. There is generally an ethereal nature to the tracks but put up against harder clubbier sounds to clash but complement (02:22). You can generally find a nice acid 303 line in there somewhere too,” Flatfoot Sam explained.