Plug In.
It's Luke Vibert’s year, or it’s going to be. The Cornwall kid made his name as Wagon Christ in the early nineties,
recording on Rising High. Then, last year, his mutant drum’n’bass farce, Drum’n’Bass for Papa came out to great
acclaim, and confirmed him alongside mates like Aphex Twin (his remix of Wagon Christ’s “Spotlight” on the fairly
average drum’n’bass compilation on Blue Planet records), Avantgardism, is incredible) and Squarepusher as one of
the Kings of weirdbeats.
Plug was the name on this one -- named this by his dad for his big goofy teeth (plus Luke likes the electrical
connotations). It’s coming out in America with three songs taken off because of sample/copyright restrictions.
The label is Trent Reznor’s new imprint, Nothing. Reznor’s a big fan of Plug, and Vibert’s just recently remixed
Nine Inch Nails’ “Perfect Drug” (he also mentions another recently done remix, a longtime favorite, the Meat Beat
Manifesto classic “Radio Babylon”).
Last March, he signed a five album deal with Virgin for the name Wagon Christ, and he has an album slated to come
out very soon on Mo’ Wax under his real name -- mainly ‘trip-hop’ he describes it, while cringing at the word.
We all cringe at the word, but still we use it. Plus, he mentions that he’s done some work with English rappers
that’ll come out on Ninja Tune at some point in the future. A few months after the Mo’ Wax album, Virgin should
put out some more Wagon Christ. Yes, one of these days, it will be Luke Vibert’s year.
And I think he’s enjoying it. Plug’s Drum’n’Bass For Papa has sold the best yet. Virgin money is nice, because
it’s a lot and you can take it to the bank, but you have to pay taxes. Money for DJ-ing is cool though it’s not
as much, but it’s cash in hand, and you don’t need to declare it. Luke’s worried about his tax bill for the last
couple years. His lawyers warned him that he’s going to be paying to the Man, big time. Things are getting serious
now. He takes longer to do remixes, and he’s really busy. He lives outside of London, but not so far he can’t make
it in anytime he wants -- London’s too hectic. And he’s mates with Aphex Twin, and he tells me about how Aphex
is trying to buy a whole entire bank building somewhere in London with great big soundproof vaults underneath.
As a sidenote, there is no metaphysics to Plug, nothing too emotionally or sentimentally advanced. If you don’t
find what you’re looking for on the surface, I don’t think you’ll find it anywhere. The idea is big, weird beats.
It doesn’t bode well for flourishing descriptions of the tracks, so I leave it with the Q & A. Says Vibert,
“All my stuff makes me smile when I do it. I do it all with a good sense of humour. I always have worked that way.
That was how I started, just doing it for my mates’ birthdays and stuff -- a good excuse to do a stupid track.”
The day of the interview, he’s just come back from a family holiday in Thailand, and he’s just been to the record
store and bought like fifty records. I thumbed through them, and they all looked like fascinating crap. But we
all have this problem of going to the record store and coming out with crap, don’t we?
SAB - So did your dad appreciate drum’n’bass for Papa?
Luke - Yeah, he did actually. It was unfortunate actually, because he thought it was for him especially. But it
was just a coincidence really. I did a compilation of tracks from the album and gave it to him, and I called it
Drum’n’Bass For Papa. So at one point I thought it would be a good cheezy album title, but he kind of took it to
all his friends, saying ‘look how much my son loves me’ and things like that. He did appreciate it though, but
not so much the music. I think that was a bit over his head. But I think more than most parents he can get into
it, because he likes really hard stuff, like punk and hard rock, or Jimi Hendrix. So he gets into it on one level,
but not the rhythms so much. He kind of likes the aggro speed of it. It was my grandpa on the cover of the album.
So he was extra pleased to see his dad on the cover as well
SAB - Yeah, well you’ve got to keep it in the family.
Luke - Well, I wouldn’t have used him. It was just such a wicked photo. I found those two photos of my granddad.
And he was a magician. Those were like professional photos taken in 1930 or 1931.
SAB - Well, there’s a big element of your parents’ record collection in there, isn’t there?
Luke - Yeah, well there used to be. That’s how I started off sampling, because of my mom’s big easy listening collection.
I just used to sample that mainly. She had loads of dodgy old records from the early 60s. And I started sampling
them, because I was really into crackles at the time. And then I bought them all again on CD in like 1993, and
resampled all the tracks. One of which is -- well, the only one that’s ever come out with my mom’s records on it
was on the last Headz on Mo’ Wax. That was a really old track from 93 that I did with Charles Aznavour samples,
one of my mom’s CDs. But they’re mainly mine now, because that’s what I love -- going out and buying records, then
coming home and sampling them. It’s all part of the fun.
SAB - It seems like with your music, so many things happen for no reason. Like most music has cause and effect,
but you don’t seem to work that way.
Luke - I don’t really think about the way I do things at all. It’s just sort of natural. Like when I listen to
other people’s stuff, I just think how boring, because it just goes on and on. I like cramming loads of different
shit in, basically. If I listen to things, I get bored really quickly. I think I’ve got to do something different
now -- It’s been going for ten seconds, and it hasn’t switched. That’s what I’m like with the tele as well.
SAB - Yeah, it sounds like you use a lot of one-off samples?
Luke - Yeah, I like one-off samples. It’s a definite thing that I try to do. Usually, it just happens, because
I sample too many things. I have days when I buy loads of records, and I just take them home, and just play loads
off onto a DAT tape. And then I just go through the DAT tapes, when it comes to doing tracks. I listen it out,
and sample loads -- just too many things for each track. I’ve got loads of sampling time now, so I sample way too
much. I just try to use it at some point in the track. There’s never much deep thought into it. I just know that
if I don’t use it for that track, then I’ll probably never use it again, and forget about it. So I just try to
squeeze lots into it. More with the drum’n’bass than any of the other stuff. The last thing I did was a Mo’ Wax,
which was mainly just like a trip-hoppy, if you like, or hip-hoppy kind of album, and it’s a bit more solid really.
Not so many different things happening. I worked more on the different kinds of beats. It was a bit more boring
really, but that’s not really the right word. It’s mainly the drum’n’bass stuff that has all the surprises.
SAB - Do you ever just want to work with the string sounds more, and leave out the drum’n’bass?
Luke - I suppose I’ve got near to that sometimes, with the slower stuff, with the more hip-hoppy stuff. Like little
beats. But usually the main thing I get into is like the big beats. And that’s usually what I start off from. Not
always, but nearly always. I’m a real sucker for that. I just start off with a huge beat, and then you’ve got fuck
all else to do, but put things around it. Syncopate them, arrange them to make a track. I’ll take the beat out
for maximum of 30 seconds, and then I think shit, it’s gotta come back in.
SAB - Do you remember the remix you did of 2 Player’s “Extreme Possibilities”? I know it was like four years ago,
and all, but the track seemed to make it sound like the only difference between drum’n’bass and trip hop was like
the speed of it?
Luke - I can’t really remember what I was thinking of, when I was doing that track. I had tried to do that before.
I think that was when I got back into drum’n’bass, and I realized the half-time vibe of it. I used to be into breakbeat-rave
stuff in like 1991, and it was getting too fast for me, up to 140 BPMs. And it got faster and faster, and I thought
it was just ridiculous and forgot about it. Most records were getting too self-referential, and sampling records
that had just come out like a week before. I just wasn’t keen on the scene. But then in 1993 and 1994, I listened
to it again, and realized the dub connotations of it, the kind of half-time vibe. It was about going for the half
beat, because it’s just too hectic otherwise. I always used to do it literally in the track, where I’d have this
thing that was half the time of the drum’n’bass part. More hiphop, or more dubby connotations. But I don’t do that
any more. I thought fuck it, because everybody knows about the half-time thing anyway. So now I’ll go for the all-out
records.
SAB - I think I heard you DJ at the Aphex show in Manchester in December.
Luke - Yeah, I went on the whole tour with him. It was great.
SAB -Yeah, it was pretty cool. I remember eating these Magnum Ice Creams, while watching Aphex with these two giant
bears in front of him. It was weird.
Luke - Those teddy bears are the people that worked really hard. That was hard work. I tried it one night, and
just got so knackered after about two seconds. It was like a nightmare sauna inside.
SAB - Were they paid teddy bears?
Luke - Well, maybe they got a bit of money, but they were just Aphex’s mates. He roped in like four of them. But
nobody wanted to do it one night. They all chickened out, so I had to do it one night.
SAB - So you’ve got three names ...
Luke - Yeah, Luke Vibert, which has an album coming on Mo’ Wax, and I sometimes use the name for remixes. And Wagon
Christ is now exclusively Virgin stuff. I signed a deal with them last March, and that’s why no Wagon Christ has
come out since -- they’re not ready to put anything out by me yet. They’re going to wait till after the Mo’ Wax
album, which should have been out last year, but should probably come out in summer. It’s been really delayed.
They were looking into all these samples to clear, which they decided not to in the end. And last year, I said
you’re not going to want to clear any of them anyway, because they’re so obscure.
SAB - I heard DJ Shadow had every sample cleared.
Luke - No not that many. He just had like seven done. He sells so many anyway. He sells like three times what I’d
sell. Because I don’t sell that much, and if that happens it just comes out of the artist’s royalties. And if you
clear them, you don’t get anything. So I just have to sign this thing, saying I’ll accept all the responsibility,
and if someone sues, then I’ll take all the shit. I don’t believe in copyright anyway. I’ve had a few people sample
my stuff, but not that many. Like Bill Laswell sampled a massive great chunk off me and my mate Jeremy’s first
album -- this dub sort of thing we’d done, and he put it over his track on the album Macro Dub Infection, this
Golden Palominos’ thing. This huge sample -- a whole minute just dropped in the middle. It’s used really badly,
but it doesn’t bother me.
SAB - Well I guess Bill Laswell can do what he wants.
Luke - Yeah, well it wasn’t him actually. It was the engineer who suggested it. Because I said in an interview
with a major mag that Bill Laswell sampled me, and then they phoned me up, and said, ‘No, it wasn’t him, it was
the engineer.’
|
|
|
From the Pulp Vaults:
(Previously unavailable online)
Bird People In China
The perfect time to take a nap is where the blue of the night meets the gold of the day, within the fleeting magic hour surrounding sunset...
The Institutionalization of Violence
It's the perfect setting. Somehow, as a city, L.A. is so now...
Broken Boulevards Still Dream of Havana
"We were going to outstrip Monte Carlo... the idea was to turn Havana into the world's biggest gambling paradise...
Listen Without Prejudice With Open Ears Volume 1
It's a sunny afternoon, and I'm on way from the Düsseldorf Hauptbahnof to St. Martins Studio...
How Deep Is The Ocean?
The Sinking of the Titanic, and the Burden of Recording
An interview with Christopher Doyle
Christopher Doyle, an Australian expatriate and one-time sailor, has done the cinematography for all but the first of Wong Kar-Wai’s movies...
What used to be paper, is now just skin
An open book with blank white paper makes the same shadow in the middle as two thighs pressed together.
Playing Once Upon A Time With Mercury Rev
Deserters songs, that’s what someone called the results of the basement sessions between the Band and Bob Dylan.
Sound without vision: Do soundtrack albums need movies?
In the last few years, one sentiment I've noticed often come from the mouths of musicians...
Chances Are: Bill Laswell’s Trip into the Vaults of Bob Marley and Miles Davis
It's impossible to write an introduction for Bill Laswell. He's been involved in over three hundred records since the early '70s, so I'm not going to even try.
Designers in the Attic
From the beginning I was convinced that an article about Attik wouldn't be entirely out of place in a magazine like SAB.
|
The Often Beautiful Music of Richard Ashcroft
Former lead singer of the Verve, Richard Ashcroft, thinks out loud about his debut solo album, Alone With Everybody.
A Million Tiny Decisions Made By Alex Garland That Affect You and Me
"It surprises how much you can keep in your head while you're writing a book..."
Tezka Macoto's Hakuchi: Parallel Universes of the Mind
"I am powerless in the face of this pitiful reality," goes the voiceover of the main character Izawa, halfway through Hakuchi: the Innocent.
Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps
The swaying of Maggie Cheung's hips becomes something like a musical refrain in Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love.
After Life Directed By Kore-Eda Hirokazu -- To Die And Then Have Time
an edited version of a conversation from October 1998 with Japanese film director, Kore-eda Hirokazu, in which he talks about his 1998 film, After Life
Little Steven on Bruce Springsteen, Sun City, The Sopranos, and his friends in Bali
Jason Anderson's interview with Little Steven, a.k.a Steven Van Zandt
Palahniuk Has Entered The Produce Section … he's eating grapes
Jason Anderson talks to Chuck Palahniuk - the author of the Fight Club. His new novel, Choke, is being released in the Spring of 2001.
Scenes : One Particular Scene From The Limey directed by Stephen Soderbergh +++ some jumbled narrative techniques
Miike Takashi -- The City of Lost Souls
a Yakuza eats a blue Popsicle in the harbour, while bodies are packed into oil barrels.
The Angel : In The Realms of the Groove
It's more than likely that you haven't heard of her, but you have heard her. I could almost guarantee it.
Techno Animal Foam At The Mouth
An excerpt from an interview with Kevin Martin and Justin Broadrick - musical collaborators in the groups Techno Animal, Sidewinder, Ice, and various other side projects - all of which makes it a full-time job to keep track of them.
Older articles can be found in The Archives
|
|
