Putting sample based music like this together takes hours of sitting and experimentation. You just have to build up a huge collection of samples and be prepared to sit all night trying different combinations out. You might sit for 3 hours before finding 2 that really work together. Mostly music like this comes about by happy accident. Although with today's faster and better quality pitch stretching and time stretching, as well as software like Melodyne, it's a lot easier to alter existing samples into something that fits with your song. For example I recently used a sample of an Indian singer over a keyboard part I'd played. There was one note which didn't fit the key, but I was able to correct that note with Melodyne. Back in the day, you couldn't do things like that (or if you could, it took hours and the results were nowhere near as convincing).
A good start would be to go through your entire CD collection and sample everything that sounds like it could be used in a song (I hope you're not thinking of making a commercial release here - heh heh). Look out for unaccompanied beats at the start of tracks, as well as solo instrument breaks, accapella vocals etc. When it's a solo part, it has more potential to fit with other tracks, although don't shy away from sampling multiple instrument parts as well. Learn how to time stretch and pitch shift to make stuff fit together.
The idea is to build up an archive of samples. Learn how to chop them up into smaller phrases and experiment with arranging them together in different orders. You can be very creative here. Artists like Four Tet have signature techniques they use to get their sound - for example he will often chop a sample into slices, pitch them an octave higher and put them back together only he'll reverse alternate slices, and play it back alongside the original sample. This is just one of thousands of ways people take samples and twist them into something completely different.
Then there's drum slicing - taking a drum loop and chopping it up into "hits" which you then rearrange to make totally different rhythms. There are a ton of tutorials online which teach you how to do this.
Overall, this is something that takes a lot of practice and hours of experimentation. You'll find that a lot of the greats spent weeks putting things together randomly until they "discovered" samples which work together. You could do a lot worse than listen to DJ Shadow's old album "Endtroducing" for some inspiration. He's the Jimi Hendrix of samplers and this album is a classic in terms of sampling. Everything on there is taken off another record and sequenced with old school sampling equipment (not a DAW in sight). You can find lists online of which tracks he used. I guarantee that album was put together after endless nights of listening to and sampling hours of vinyl. It's a labor of love! You have to be very dedicated. Good luck!
post edited by sharke - 2013/11/30 12:03:36