kuci radio interview

by ned

Luke Vibert is the name on the passport which Her Majesty's Government has issued to him, but his more well-known name in the music world is Wagon Christ. Coming from the same area of Cornwall, England, as his good friend Richard James, aka the Aphex Twin, Vibert has started to ring in high praise for his work in various realms of modern electronic music, from straight-up dance material to far more wigged-out, and at times downright disturbing, slices of music noir. Vibert's UK label, Rising High, just opened up full U.S. offices, and Wagon Christ's most recent album, Throbbing Pouch, was a smash hit at KUCI, as well as elsewhere in the country. A recent compilation on Rising High, The Real Trip, was essentially a showcase for Vibert's skill as a remixer, both on his own songs and those of other artists. Vibert was interviewed by phone by KUCI DJ Ned Raggett, host of Ned's Musical Dustbin this past September. The interview was broadcast on KUCI in late October.

Ned: Your album has just been released over here in America, but Throbbing Pouch is actually some months old. What else has come out since then in the UK?

Luke: Since then, only one EP called Redone, with two different people's mixes of "Reedin" (a track from Pouch). I have one as well (which has since appeared on The Real Trip). The Aphex Twin does one, and mates of mine, Jeremy and Graeme, who perform as Boymerang, did a jungle one.

Ned: Are there any immediate plans to come over here to do DJ dates?

Luke: I'd love to! We did have a few organized, about four over a period of a couple of weeks, but the tour promoter buggered up. He was supposed to be paying for tickets to get over and the hotel when we were over there, but he went bankrupt or did something dodgy! The whole thing fell through, but all the dates still stood, which was really frustrating. But I'm well up for (U. S. dates) in the future!

Ned: This is your second album to date, and there have been various singles and EP's released. Are you one of those people who likes to continually record?

Luke: Yeah. Whether I'm releasing stuff or not, I'm recording all the time anyway. It's my kind of release from madness. I'm sure I'd be mad if I didn't do it!

Ned: I take it you have a set-up at home?

Luke: Yeah! It's all in my bedroom. We'll have to move it, actually, because we're just moving house. It'll be pretty painful! We're going nearer into town, towards London. At the moment we're pretty far out. It's a bit of a hassle to get in here, takes about an hour and a half. It'll be really nice to be nearer, so I can get here in 20 minutes. It's a bit smaller and bit more expensive, but that's the way it goes.

Ned: What are the main pieces of equipment you like to work with?

Luke: My sampler, definitely. That's the main one -- a Roland S760. It's really nice; I love it. I've only had a sampler for about a year or so. Before that it was all just drum machines and keyboards and the like. Getting a sampler turned around the way I worked overnight.

Ned: Yeah, I noticed in earlier interviews that you said you built the songs from the ground up. You also mentioned you had something against artists who only used samples. Given that, how exactly have you been using the sampler?

Luke: It wasn't quite like that. It's just that there are different ways that you can use it. I don't believe in things like copyright. I think you should be allowed to sample anything you want. I'd be really chuffed if people sampled a track of mine and changed it into their own thing. But I really resent it when people just sample off their peers. You get quite a few people over here who do that with jungle and certain techno stuff. You get people who just sample bits off other people's records and don't change them at all, and say it's their record. That's the kind of sampling stuff I resent. It's just how you use it, really, as long as it sounds good at the end of the day!

Ned: That does tend to count for something! When you do DJing or live performances, is it just you spinning, or do you do anything with that?

Luke: I haven't really done any live stuff yet. I'm really trying to plan it out, so it won't just be with a mouse and twiddling knobs. I want to make it a bit more exciting, because I come from a live background, seeing bands before, when I was a bit younger. I really like that kind of live energy you get when there are people slightly out of time and playing the wrong notes. I'm going to try and get something going next year. I'd like a couple of other people onstage with me. I wouldn't want to be on my own, lugging all my gear around with me!

Ned: So would those folks be doing instrumental stuff?

Luke: Maybe vocal stuff as well. I've met this geezer who's quite a wicked rapper, and I'm checking that out at the moment. And singing -- I'd love to work with some singers. The only thing I've done so far in that area is remixes for people that have singing, which I've sampled up and put a bit of my own track behind, but that's not really the same. I'd like to do more backgroundy type stuff, because when I don't have things like vocals, I always get a bit paranoid and think I have to put loads of stuff in.

Ned: I found that there's no way to really describe Pouch to anybody. It keeps changing styles along the way. Is there any way that the type of music you create could ever be accurately described, or ...?

Luke: Totally! I think bedroom music is the one. That's the one I always say! I get a good feeling off of it, because I've got a few mates who do it as well. Not in a similar way, though. It's more personal.

Ned: How do you come up with titles for your songs?

Luke: It's different every time! I don't have any way of doing it. It's my worst bit, and takes me the longest to do, to think of names for tracks and albums or other projects. In the back of my mind, I resent linking words with my music. I don't really see why words are always linked in with tracks. Sometimes it's just the first thing that comes into my mind, sometimes I've decided on it before I've started!

Ned: How has the Criminal Justice Bill impacted the techno scene in the UK?

Luke: It's a really serious problem. There's hardly been any all-night parties, and I haven't been to one for quite a long time. There was one recently, a totally legal one, which was really nice. But people have gotten really scared, and there's a lot less illegal events happening. But this is in London, where I've only been for a short period of time. Down in Cornwall, there are still loads of parties all night. There's not as many police there; it's a tiny, backwater place. Admittedly, I'm a bit -- not antisocial, but I've got a group of friends, and usually I go round to their places and hang out.

Ned: Do you find, being on Rising High, that sometimes the reputation of the label precedes you?

Luke: Yes, usually in a good way! But some people overlook it, and because my stuff's on Rising High, they wouldn't give it a chance, which is a bit dodgy! Personally I'm not too bothered. I think that they're quite a smart label anyway. But whatever label I'm on, I wouldn't be bothered that much.

Ned: You've mentioned in earlier interviews possibly putting up tracks on the Internet for downloading. Have you set up a web site yet?

Luke: No, not yet. The dodgy thing would be the money side of it. I can't see any way that I could get paid! I'm thinking of it as more of an alternative to record labels. It does sounds like a wicked idea. I do want to get my old stuff out. I've got DAT's that help to explain what might seem to be mad, random leaps between albums!

Ned: Noting that you grew up in Cornwall, how much do, or did, now that you've moved, your surroundings influence what you do, or does that matter at all?

Luke: Oh, I think it did, a lot! I didn't ever feel, until I came up here, any pressure to do any style of music. We just used to dabble, me and my friends, doing whatever we felt like doing. I've always liked all kinds of things, from live stuff to more dancey stuff. I probably listen more to non-dancey stuff like funk and jazz, those kinds of things, at home. I find dancey stuff is made for clubs, more than anything else, which is fine, but I don't tend to stick it on at home ... much. Which is what I like more about bedroom stuff, how it's more personal. Most of it you can't really play in clubs ...

Ned: What's your take on people who, even after all these years of modern electronic music, still seem to think of working with samplers or synths as somehow soulless?

Luke: God, I don't know. I don't understand it, really, because I just don't feel like that at all. I think that with synths you can make really nice sounds. There's old Detroit stuff, which was the first synthy stuff that I really decided to get into, Derrick May and all those geezers. I don't know why people still go on like that. It happens a lot over here as well. The only papers I can ever get into are the dance ones or the weeklies. We never get into the mainstream publications, like Q or Rolling Stone. They cover some dance stuff, but more the charty crossover material.

Ned: What in general would you like to do musically in the future?

Luke: Definitely rap stuff. I'd love to take a bigger back seat and have my name totally obliterated, not on it at all, to just be a producer of some kind of rap. Somewhere inside me there's also some sort of pop person waiting to come out. I was a real pop lad, up to the age of 14, really following the charts. I've still got a certain amount of that in me, so at some point I'm going to try and have a hit, try being the operative word! But my big plan is to, when I can afford it, move back down to the country Peter Gabriel-style and set up something!

Ned: Would you describe yourself as a very satisfied artist so far?

Luke: Um ... not really, no. I'm always unsatisfied with tracks. But that's the whole drive of doing more all the time. I've never sat down thinking I'm going to do the track of my life or anything like that, but I always think they're going to be better than they are. There's a period where I really like them, maybe the first couple of weeks, and then I start getting a bit cheesy on them, because I'm doing more all the time. Then I get back into them after a period of time, and that's when I usually decide to release them. I usually leave a bit of a gap, and then I can think more objectively about them a month or a couple of months later.