What’s this riff that starts this song?

December 13, 2018 9:47 PM

What’s the name of this riff in the first five seconds of Two Full Moons and a Trout remix? Bonus question: wasn’t this riff in a lot of movies from the 80s and 90s, as a crappy motif signifying martial arts or something?
posted by Monochrome to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Best answer: I think you may have in mind this shakuhachi sample [.wav file]. I don't know much about it--or much about music at all really--but here are people talking about Peter Gabriel and Enigma using it, plus some versions on YouTube and the story of another sample with a similarly important history. The association with martial arts movies may be direct or it may be connected to honkyoku in general, e.g. pieces like this.
posted by Wobbuffet at 10:31 PM on December 13, 2018 [9 favorites]

After hearing the first fraction of a second, I immediately thought of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. But it quickly diverged from there...
posted by jozxyqk at 2:33 AM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

It reminds me a bit of the opening notes from Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer.
posted by bondcliff at 6:53 AM on December 14, 2018

Pretty sure the first 4-5 seconds were in the Mask of Zorro (1998), in the finale at the gold mine fight.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:57 AM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]