Yet another alias of
Atom Heart, continuing even further in the latin direction begun with his
Senor Coconut project. With Los Samplers Atom pretends to be a band of 5 or 6 Chileans who all play samplers. A rather amusing, if
problematically stereotypical, photo of these fictional members is featured on the front of the
eponymous CD. Despite the ghosts of
minstrelsy conjured up by this image, the music is completely amazing, and the fact that Atom is evidently completely involved and immersed in his new adopted culture and collaborating with artists in
Chile does a lot to dispel any misgivings about cultural
appropriation.
The music itself is an incredible amalgam of low-bitrate samplers, time-stretched Perez Prado yelps, amazingly infectious rhythms, digital glitches, and clever spanish lyrics (one of my favorite tracks is about being the King of the "Galetas", which the notes explain means "cookies", but also refers to the glitches that appear throughout the album). With this record Atom Heart has literally deconstructed and rebuilt the mambo and other latin styles, sifting them through a sonic, post-modern sieve.
To my knowledge, the only releases so far under the Los Samplers name is the self-titled CD on Rather Interesting and a vinyl single on Hot Air (part of the Medical Milestones series)