Leon Vynehall – ‘It’s Just (House Of Dupree)’

Bassline

Formed from a tasty monosynth tone with a long sustain, the bass underpins the synth sample directly throughout the course of the track, but on first listen it doesn’t play the notes you’d expect. Cleverly, instead of just playing the root note of each transposed major triad played by the sample, it adopts a different line, merging with the chords to produce a satisfyingly mature, minor 7th feel to the first two chords in the sequence. That first F# major chord becomes an Ebm7 by the addition of an Eb root, while the Ab major that follows it becomes an Fm7 by way of an added F root. Here’s a piano roll diagram of what the notes in the sampled synth chords are (click to enlarge):

Here’s how that sounds on its own:

And here’s the same diagram with the bass part added in, shown in red:

Here’s how the bass changes the feel of those chords:

Vocal Hook

The main vocal hook of ‘It’s Just’ is another sampled vocal – a male voice uttering a phrase over which there’s much debate about what’s actually being said. It could be anything from “this is good” to “there’s a squirrel!”, but close examination reveals the use of another interesting technique. It sounds as if these are either multiple samples of the same phrase with different ending notes, or it’s the same sample whose end note has been repitched somehow, using either a pitch-bend wheel on the track triggering the sample, or some other kind of software pitch-modulation tool such as Melodyne or even Auto-Tune. We can only hazard a guess here, but if that is the case it’s a very effective way of creating melodic interest from a sole sample. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s a heavy amount of rapid pan modulation flinging the sample around the stereo field too.

Drum Track

Programmed at a leisurely 120 bpm with heavy swing, the drum track starts out relatively simply with a largely kick and hi-hat-based pattern that evolves gradually as the tune progresses, adding in further elements such as a rimshot, an open drum machine hat, congas and a single low-pass-filtered tom. A diagram of the main elements is shown below:

The uppermost row of notes represents a re-triggered, pitched-down vocal sample that sounds like it could be a snippet from the spoken-word voiceover. This makes up one of the main components of the rhythm track over the extended intro section.

Here’s how the pattern sounds in isolation, replayed using similar sounds:

And, for the sake of completeness, here’s how the drum pattern sounds under the chords and bass we transcribed earlier:

Structure

In typical deep house style, the structure of ‘It’s Just’ is quite freeform, with no traditional verse/chorus pattern, rather a flowing, rolling architecture with two or three main elements – vocal sample, keyboard sample and bassline – taking turns to appear and disappear as the track continues. That said, there are several clear transition points at which one part segues into the next. One example of this is the string section that switches in at 4:28, prompting a gradual stripdown of the groove to its essential elements, before everything piles back into the mix at 5:32.

The ending is completely left-field, picking up after you think the track has ended with a totally unrelated, sixteen-bar string section passage that soars in out of nowhere by means of a slowly opened low-pass filter, followed by a recording of somebody ejecting, inserting and rewinding a cassette tape – a brilliantly old-school nod to the mixtapes that inspired the EP.