Scrapbook Empires
By ineff on March 1, 2026 11:57 pm
Lots of chopping, tuning, and microtiming this week, and it paid off in unexpected ways.
The initial beat went to plan, but I was surprised at how many sections the track eventually grew into―or that it was even possible to pull off an anthem chorus like ~1:11 by reassembling diced-up bits of waltzes and foxtrots from the 1910s.
TL;DR Every Week Is Plunderphonics Week, if you sample enough ancient records 
Made and mixed on a Dirtywave M8 Tracker. All samples used are in the Public Domain/CC0.
› Liner notes
‹ Liner notes
Vocalists
This week's primary vocalists are freesound user buggly (freestyle scatting) and 1920s blues legend Clara Smith ("solo" from 1:36—2:07). I'd used buggly's vocals before in the WB24 track, "Unpossible."
Orchestra
I'm happy with how the orchestral parts came out; it's a melange of 4 different records from various genres, mostly from bits of "Chinese blues" (1915), which must be one of the least blues (and probably one of the least Chinese)-sounding fox trots ever recorded.
In fact, if I've learned one thing after chopping a bunch of >100-year-old records, it's that anything recorded before 1920 with the word "Blues" in it was a.) absolutely nothing like blues and b.) probably terrible.
Along those lines, songwriters back in the day seemed to have a weird yen for name-dropping "exotic" cultures in their titles (not so much in the actual music)―just looking at three of the records sampled in this track: Chinese blues (doesn't sound Chinese), The Japanese sandman (doesn't sound Japanese), and Sioux flute serenade (tbh: no idea if it sounds like a Sioux flute, but it's a much better song than the other two).
› freesound.org samples used
‹ freesound.org samples used
› Library of Congress samples used
‹ Library of Congress samples used
Vocals: Mean papa turn in your key (1924), performed by Clara Smith ― License: Public Domain
Vocals: The Japanese sandman (1920), performed by Olive Kline ― License: Public Domain
Orchestra: Chinese blues (1915), performed by Sousa's Band ― License: Public Domain
Orchestra: Peggy (1919), performed by Joseph C. Smith's Orchestra ― License: Public Domain
Orchestra: Sioux flute serenade (1924), performed by Victor Concert Orchestra ― License: Public Domain
Orchestra: Medley waltz (1919), performed by Joseph C. Smith's Orchestra ― License: Public Domain
