A snapshot of NYC nightlife, Amelia Airhorn is at the center of this mixtape. A living, breathing sample, Amelia serves as the headpiece of the adventure as she experiences NYC nightlife for the first time; it’s ups and downs and the missteps that occur as she grows up in the fast-paced and hectic environment.
Amelia Airhorn is the brainchild of NYC based electronic duo The Knocks and nu-disco DJ/producer/vocalist Skylar Spence. The artists originally met while Spence supported the duo on their Feel Good Feel Great North American headline tour and immediately connected on their mutual love for classic disco, soul, and sample-based musical productions. After wrapping the tour, the trio started working together at The Knocks’ HeavyRoc Studio on the Lower East Side which eventually turn into an experimental concept mixtape that mixes the aforementioned genres into a compelling narrative about NYC nightlife spanning across multi-generational time periods (1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s). The early sessions were initially focused on new material for the acts, but quickly became something unique and different as the trio discovered their mutual love for genre-bending music and sampling.
The production and dialogue is entirely sample based, mixing snippets from over 40 movies and each song containing anywhere from 5-10 samples. The sampleization of this body of work doesn’t just stem from crate digging – rather the movie dialogue, YouTube samples, and foley culminate into an auditory and visual piece that is a collage at it’s core. It’s almost psychedelic in the way that the bitrates/sample rates add up and the source material stacks up against each other.
Animated by Ida Chelengar [Moi$t Breezy], the visual component was ideated around the central themes of the mixtape and serves as a guide and complimentary piece to the musical narrative. The imagery was hand-drawn over found images.