by rene passet
"A Little Night Music For All You Nightowlz Out There..." whispers a deep voice as you put on Throbbing Pouch, Wagon Christ's second album for Rising High.
Together with his high acclaimed Weirs album for Rephlex, twenty-two year-old Luke Vibert has shown himself as a talented mood creator, using bizarre sounds
and crusty beats to put down a Twin Peaks-ish atmosphere. But if you listen to his latest work you sense a shift in his musical approach. Why does Throbbing
Pouch sounds so different from his earlier work? "Basically because I got a sampler, ha ha ha! It really is as simple as that. For the first EP I did (Sunset
Boulevard), and for the album I borrowed a sampler for a couple of tracks. I sampled a couple of Indian drums that I had. Basically I didn't have a sampler at all
and...it's just a bit more the music I wanna make, if you know what I mean. I was always into the rhythms and things like that but I cannot really work with a drum
machine because I have never liked using the same vibes or the same rhythm twice." You used to be a drummer.. "Yes that's true, not a very good one though. No
not at all." But did that come in handy for your latest album? "Yeah I did. Just the hitside, I just hit my snare drum and sampled it and than put it in the rhythm of my
computer. I never actually do it because I couldn't keep time well enough, I was always crap at that sort of thing."
When Luke started out making his own music, he
hardly owned any gear. Phat Lab Nightmare was made with old synths and a borrowed sampler, which makes the result even more intriguing. Not much is left now
of Luke's electronic relics: "I just got one keyboard left, the rest fell apart, they were all second hand anyway and on their last legs." Luke agrees that the sounds on
his debut were so special because of these old machines and he's glad he will soon be able to buy some 'new' analogue stuff. "I'm getting some money now so I can
finally get some keyboards, some fine analogue keyboards but they're so expensive over here. New digital keyboards are actually cheaper than old analogue
keyboards, it's crazy. Things like 101's are five hundred quid now. They're not worth it. But I'm just waiting till I can get me some synths, and then my music will
sound different again, ha ha!" Aren't you afraid that you will disappoint fans who liked your first two albums and expect more of the same on this one? "I never think
about anyone than myself when I'm doing my stuff. I just do what I like. At the moment it's fine, I haven't have to think about the audience in general at all because
I've been playing my stuff to Rising High and they like it, so.." Didn't you consider releasing Throbbing Pouch under a new alter ego? "I did think of it but then I
thought: No. In the meantime I had done the At Atmos EP of which I think kind of lead on to this album. Furthermore, I consider finding track names and artist
names a stupid thing. I hate that bit, giving it names. It just seems just so limiting in a way."
Asked how he would describe his own music Luke sighs: "I'm always the
worst person in trying to describe my own stuff. I don't know, I really don't know. I hope it's not like anything because that's what I try. I don't want to sound like
somebody else. When I start working on a track, I definitely never have an idea of what it's gonna be like, what sort of style. Like 'I'll do a house track or I do an
ambient track.' I just start pissing around." Which, by the way, nightowl Luke Vibert preferably does when the world is asleep. "When everybody has gone to bed
I'll put my headphones on and then get really lost. I don't think of anything when I'm working on my music." Luke recently moved to London, but he grew up in
Cornwall where he went to school with Grant Wilson Claridge (his link to Rephlex). "That's the great thing of living up here," he laughs. "I can keep close tabs on
those bastards (meaning the "I'm always popping in there and making sure they are doing their jobs.") Ha ha!"
The very first release of Wagon Christ was in fact a
contribution to a Volume-compilation, but since then the relationship between Luke and the famous Trance Europe Express-staff has gone downhill. Recently he
refused to contribute a track for the upcoming TEEX4. "They asked me, but I turned them down." After a short silence Luke continues, "well..there is a bit more to
it than that. I did a track for the second issue, but they turned it down because they didn't ask me for one. They said it wasn't Wagon Christ-y enough! I said 'Look,
'I'm Wagon Christ and I did it, so how is that not Wagon Christ?' It's a shame really, it was a great track and I really wanted to be on the last one because two of
my friends were on it: Richard and Kinesthesia, Chris Jeffs. It would have fit in nicely and it really pissed me off."
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