Samo Sound Boy's 'Begging Please' Will Devastate You, so First Here's a Nice Story About His First Kiss

Photo courtesy of Samo Sound Boy/Body High

With releases from Los Angeles electronic label Body High, it’s easy to focus on what’s not there: namely, the overcooked signifiers of modern EDM. With Body High, there are no naked-girl-.jpeg “vibes” Youtube channels stuffed with recycled R&B flips, and their music is not kiddie-pool Topman house aimed at festival side stages and hotel lobbies. The label operates from the perspective that dance music is less a “lifestyle” and more an art form, one armed with an arsenal of emotions beyond “Fam, there’s gonna be chicks at this after-hours."

So fuck the drop; what’s left? A new Samo Sound Boy record, and a good one. Begging Please picks up where DJ Dodger Stadium’s self-titled 2014 debut (Samo’s collaborative project with Jerome LOL) left off. That record surveyed a particular strain of late-afternoon Los Angeles spirituality, with gospel vocals teetering between revelation and paranoia. In an interview with us last year Samo explained how the record was informed by pop-up churches in Downtown LA parks near the Body High studio.

Begging Please brings similar intensity into a surprisingly direct narrative of romantic turmoil. You won't hear a more vulnerable electronic full-length this year.

Almost all of the songs revolve around wide-eyed soul diva samples cropped to yearning sentence fragments. Their exclamations sound involuntary, looped over incandescent synths and stuttering drum machines—“make me feel!” “I came to you,” “what, what can I do?” Taken as a whole they form a pointillist image of a crumbling relationship.

On “Save Wait Time” the vocal sample repeats the song’s title. It’s a feeling anyone who has been through a nasty split will recognize: an irrational, syntax-free attempt to preserve something you know is doomed. The song stops. Time doesn’t.

Samo’s concise sampling helps expose emotional depth. It’s in line with Body High’s approach as a label: Give people what they need, nothing more.

Begging Please comes out today. Stream it below, and buy it here. To celebrate I reached out to Samo to talk about his first kiss and other faves, and I found out what Body High studio time really looks like (mostly Auto-Tune karaoke).

Noisey: What’s the first time you ever got in trouble?
Samo Sound Boy: First grade in NYC, trying to climb over the playground fence during recess to get to a shaved ice cart out on the street.

First job?
Bus boy at this terrible restaurant that had live jazz.

Favorite party you've ever been to?
Two years ago after I played Movement in Detroit I went to this afterparty at the Russell Industrial Center. Marcellus Pittman and Jay Daniel played (among others), and the vibe was unreal. I stayed until the next morning when I had to go to the airport

First kiss?
My girlfriend in fifth grade at a school dance. Have always loved the nightlife.

First music that changed your life?
Outkast’s Aquemini.

First act of defiance?
I got my ear pierced when I was really young—like maybe ten.

Favorite dark corner of the internet?
Ebay can get pretty dark for me. Just on a lack of self-control level. Like I don't really need to buy every single version of a concert tee from the Puff Daddy No Way Out Tour, but I get sucked in.

Favorite guilty pleasure?
Honestly, Jerome and I waste a lot of time in the studio recording ourselves with Auto-Tune doing the Justin Vernon parts to Kanye songs. I can really kill “Lost In The World.”

Favorite luxury item you’d buy if you could?
The Raf Simons / Sterling Ruby hand painted parka that they did last year. I think they only made five of them.

Favorite noise?
The LinnDrum clap.

Favorite diva?
Chaka Khan

Samo Sound Boy's New York album release party is May 7 at Good Room with Lemonade, Dubbel Dutch, Mickey [MATES], Rush Midnight, Tezeo, and more. His LA album release party is May 16 at The Lash Pop-up with Jim-E Stack, D33J, and Karman.

Ezra Marus has also always loved the nightlife. Follow him on Twitter.