MC Tunes Vs 808 State -The Only Rhyme That Bites -ZTT singles collection. If my memory serves me right we started writing ‘Only Rhyme as a new tune at Spirit Studios MCR for a possible TV appearance that was to be filmed at The Thunderdome in March 1989 I’m not sure but it might have been for Snub TV or Granada ,the filming was scrubbed but the gig kind of happened very loosely on one of the Spin Master’s regular Saturday night slots. I remember Martin bringing along one of those Steinberg headless bass guitars and I wrote the bass line based on a Magma riff that I could play .(replaced by A Roland D50 keyboard on the record) The drum patterns in my R8 were recycled many times in this period ,for instance I hear “The Only Rhyme” beat in other tracks such as Cubik and in a remix for The Shamen “Human Energy”. By using the “Electronic”Ram card it could sound like an 808 but with wider dynamics and swing ,really skippy ,but in some later versions of the track we employ the Simmons drum sound from the same sound card .We always ran the drum machine live to the mix so as to interject little trills and fills between the vocals. The Big Country sample came in on a later session and Im pretty sure it was one of Martins middle of the night ideas .He asked me if I owned a copy of this Western Film theme on vinyl ,I did but it was an MFP version ,We later replaced it with the OST version ,it involved a bit of cutting and jiggling to make it fit .(not necessarily in tune ) .We may have attempted cutting it in off a turntable ,there are some other samples cut in by Daz on the ones and twos ( continued in comments) #sarmstudio @sarmstudios @wearespiritstudios #rave #90s