im glad at least some ppl understood me... but yes its my fault for expressing what i meant very poorly. i will try to explain...
By 'sample-based' i didnt mean just anything that uses samples. I meant using samples for the foundation of the tracks, what makes a track belong to a style/genre. Ofcourse using filed-recordings is innovative, and ofcourse Akufen and the rest you said are innovative. But all of them used samples for the 'filling' of the tracks, and made the beat themselves (in one way or another).
To make it a bit clearer so that we all speak the same language, heres some theory. Arrangement has a few elements -
Foundation (kick, bass);
Rhythm (what plays counter to the foundation),
Lead,
Pad,
Solo,
Break. While they may change in different genres, the most important of them stay the same. Needless to say, the Foundation of a track is what most clearly defines a style in electronic music.
So by saying "sample-based" i meant using a sampled/ready-made foundation for a track. I could care less if one uses samples for a lead, rhythm or whatever other arrangement element, that has no relation whatsoever to whether the product is innovative or not. Given todays tools, its more than easy to mangle stuff beyond recognition, even if its sampled from another track in the same genre. Except for one element, and thats the most important (and hardest to create).
The Foundation. Due to its highly harmonic content it can only be mangled so much before its worthless. Its what drives a track. So when you sample that, you gotta leave it (less or more) in its original state.
Then you become a copycat. This is what i called a 'samplist'. These are the bandwagon jumpers. The flooders. You name it. Its what makes a style die.
Offtopic, but maybe not quite: many people confuse Arrangement with Sequencing. Its a tricky territory due to the constant changing nature of electronic music. Arrangement is not about what follows what in a track (chorus, bridge, verse...). Arrangemet is what fills space in any given moment of the track, or those basic elements mentioned above. Some of them are not always strictly defined. But one is.
So in a brief summary (edit- only in my book ofcourse
):
Innovative - newly, freshly designed foundation. And i will dare to say, this is what minimal is all about. peace
