Over the last year or so, I’ve noticed an increasing number of artists sampling the sound of a gun being cocked. You know, the “chk-chk” sound usually heard before someone’s brain splatters on the wall (hahahahah!!). Perhaps it’s been here all along and this “trend” that I’m picking up on merely reflects my current predilection toward sample-based musics. But already in the first half of 2012, this sound, this aural signifier of threat, has played such a prominent role in specifying what I consider to be a signature sound of 2012 that I was compelled to make a mix out of some of my favorites (yes, I found more than these 10 songs).
I included a couple rappers (Lil B, Joey Bada$$), but I generally avoided rap since it already has such a rich history with the gun-cock (which perhaps speaks to the influence that rap has had on the rest of the tracks here). Aside from Alex Gray (as DJ/PURPLE/IMAGE on “02” and as Heat Wave on “Every Fuck Shop”), the gun-cock sample is featured prominently in these tracks, either for narrative or aesthetic purposes. Of course, in this context, it all boils down to aesthetics in the end, but the gun-cocking in tracks like “SEX TAPE” (BODYGUARD) and “Bludgeon Riddim” (Massacooramaan) do little in service of any kind of storyline. Instead, the gun-cock is included here as a sound among many others, oftentimes without the subsequent gunshot, a sort of democratization that deflates the cocked gun’s implied violence while acting as an aesthetic shorthand for a tension that’s internalized rather than released.
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[00:00] White Rainbow - “DUUUUK IT OUT”
[01:33] Heat Wave - “Every Fuck Shop”
[06:11] BODYGUARD - “SEX TAPE”
[09:40] Joey Bada$$ - “Survival Tactics”
[13:02] Alphabets - “Made U Sick. Kill Them All.”
[21:09] Dean Blunt - “The Narcissist II” [excerpt]
[26:43] Massacooramaan - “Bludgeon Riddim”
[31:31] DJ/PURPLE/IMAGE - “02”
[35:26] Ahnnu - “db4ser”
[36:28] Lil B - “Dirty Game”
Thanks to C Monster and Strauss for a couple of the more siginficiant tracks (Lil B’s “Dirty Game” and Alphabets’ “Made U Sick. Kill Them All,” respectively).