By Keith Walsh
I spent a recent evening watching a livestream on YouTube of Nate Bridges and Brandon Niznik (Wise Owl) of Black Market Dub tracking “Heart Of Glass” by Blondie in reggae style. It was a very instructive event and I recommend anyone interested in how their music is made to follow Black Market on Bandcamp to find out when they’ll present their works in progress again. They tell me the Blondie remixes are coming soon.

In the meantime, Black Market has released “Five Fingers Of Dub,” which features music from great Kung Fu Movies, reimagined in dub mixes. Bridges and Niznik do amazing things using the studio as an instrument, and the “Five Fingers” mixes are exceptional examples of their work. I had the chance to ask Bridges, whose day job is recording music at Nashville’s High Noon Audio,  about how he was inspired by Bruce Lee and his films, as well as by the Wu Tang Clan.

Synthbeat: What is your relationship with Chinese music? Is it from Bruce Lee movies, or something else?
Nate Bridges: I love Bruce Lee. I think he’s one of the most fascinating individuals of the 20th century, and the fact that he had such a huge impact on film makes him easy for someone like me to dive into. I recently purchased the new Bruce Lee Criterion box set that contains all five of his films and I just ate it up. I’d seen Enter The Dragon and a few others before but seeing those films restored with such care was a real treat. That box set probably kicked off this idea in my head to do a Kung-Fu-inspired record, but I don’t actually sample from any of his movies. Most of the films I sample from are later 70s Shaw Brothers films, the same well-spring that Wu-Tang drew from in the early 90s. I’m also a giant Wu-Tang fan, and they showed decades ago how well these old martial arts films meld with electronic music. My biggest takeaway from doing this particular project was an affirmation of what I’ve always believed: anything can be turned into a reggae/dub song. Music is music, and funneled through Black Market – this is what it will sound like.

Synthbeat: Does the fact that these are Hollywood soundtracks change anything about the authenticity of the original work or your relationship with it?
Nate Bridges: I don’t think I’d ever tackle something like original Chinese folk music. The fact that this music was funneled through Hollywood and cinema is what makes them approachable to me. The music is composed with a certain goal in mind that makes sampling much easier. These soundtracks have themes and motifs that are meant to draw viewers’ attention in and to enunciate kicks and punches, which is a much different goal than a piece of traditional music would have.

Synthbeat: You quote  someone from Wu Tang Clan on the Bandcamp page. Isn’t there a connection to what Wu Tang did with some soundbites and with their affection for Kung Fu culture and what you did on this album?
Nate Bridges: Again, I’m a huge Wu-Tang fan. Many of these samples are from the same films they sampled on their famous 90s albums. Everything I tried to source outside of their influence just did not hit the same way, and ultimately I think its a cool way to pay tribute to what they were doing by sharing some of the same samples they used.

Synthbeat: What movies did you get soundtracks from?
Nate Bridges: Honestly, I should have taken more notes and written down what I’d been using. But from what I remember, I used samples from Shogun Assassin, Return to the 36 Chambers, and The Five Fingers of Death. Many samples were pulled from compilations that made it hard to source exactly where they were from. I generally stuck to the classic 70s Shaw Brothers films though.

www.highnoonaudio.com
Blackmarketdub.bandcamp.com/
Black Market Dub On Patreon
BlackMarket_Dub on Instagram
High Noon Audio on Instagram
Wise Owl on Facebook
Sam Small on Facebook

finis