A loud belch of static interference comes zipping across the phone lines. It is then quickly replaced by the cheery, West Country tones of Luke Vibert. He is
demonstrating the limitations of the handset at his end, a totally impractical novelty device in the shape of a Kawasaki motorbike which was given to him by his
sister. As ever in Vibertland, life runs at right angles to the norm. His current reputation rests largely on this ability to pull some novel twists on reality, in particular the
left field electro-funk experiments as Wagon Christ. And in the past year expectations have been further confounded by the arrival of his Plug alias, under which his
disguise he tears out farside drum'n'bass licks composed of off-kilter rhyhtms, warped subliminal voices and sudden shifts in melody and tempo. Unpredictability is
his forte. Or does he simply like weirding people out?
"Yeah, some part of me, but I never really do it for that. It's more for me - just for fun, even." Fun is not a
word much associated with drum'n'bass these days. From the logical progressions of the ambient/jazz crews to the spliffed out basslines of the hardstep rollers and
determinedly sinister preoccupations of the "dark" techstepers, drum'n'bass has become increasingly self-conscious and serious. Vibert music is different. Perhaps
becuase it dares to break all the accepted rules governing club and radio play and thus bypass the traditional buffer zone of the crowd pleasing DJ.
"Recently on a few tracks, I thought about what it might sound like in a club, but usually I'm making it to amuse myself, basically. It's that bad thing that most people think dance
music is just for clubs, but that's crap, really. You don't hang out in a club all day." So what's it for then? "Listening! That's the most important thing. Background,
foreground, or whatever. Just for putting on in a home environment or office or anything. I never usually think about what it's going to sound like in a club, I'm just
doing it in headphones and it's what sounds good to me." And naturally, the idea Luke Vibert listening environment is a comfortable armchair in his living room
rather than the sweatbox ambience of the capital's night life. "Yes, but I always have done. I don't go out much. I mainly listen to old stuff anyway, so that club thing
becomes a bit obsolete. Old weird electronic stuff, funk, stuff designed to be played at home. And that's the music I tend to sample, so it tneds to sound a bit more
like that: cheesy and worn. Also I think I cram too much detail in to make them club tunes, it can sound a bit like a wall of noise when you hear them out. I mean, I
like that about them, but quite a few people don't!"
These unnamed dissenters are, however, quite clearly in a minority. The three Plug EPs and recent album
Drum'n'Bass For Papa [the 'papa' is presumably his grandad, who appears in an old sepia photo on the front cover] have helped spread the drum'n'bass virus way
beyond the confines of suburban all-nighters and pirate radio, drawing on everything from the quirky eclecticism of early Aphex productions to the spartan
breakbeat abstraction of Photek [the only drum'n'bass auteur he cares to single out as an inspiration]. Yet whatever the influences [and there are many], the one
unifying factor is his work is the funk. Loose hipster grooves allied to blistering breakbeat attitude. Presumably he has always been a superfly kind of guy?
"Maybe very deep down, but not at all anywhere near the surface. I'm just a bit of a twat, really! I'm not at all fly. I'd love to be, but I'm not. Just in the musical part of my
brain." In fact, his musical tastes are more eccentric and eclectic than that suggests. And despite being hip to the new wave of drum'n'bass sophisticates, he'd really
much rather dip back into the musical past for inspiration and relaxation. "It could be anything, the stuff that I sample. It's whatever you think to do with it in the
sample that takes it. It's strange sometimes because I sample things and thing 'Why did I sample this shit?' Then suddenly you realise, 'No way! That goes wickedly
with this!' The way that it all leads on from sample to another is wicked. I blame my mum in some ways, because three or four years ago when I got my first
sampler I was sampling loads of her stuff, loads of Serge Gainsbourg and this French easy listening. Classy shit with orchestras and hugh lush section of vibraphone.
I started sampling little bits and slowly really got into it. I realised that I really liked that kind of sound. I can't get with this digital stuff these days. Most drum'n'bass
and hiphop, which is the main stuff that I like, isn't that digital anyway. But I've gone right off most techno, it just sounds really cold to me now, after listening to
loads of lush shit for years."
Isn't it because the spontaneity has been lost? The sense of not knowing quite what strangeness is lurking just around the corner? The
imagination? His own music seems to be an effort to recreate the vibrancy and charm of such spirited recordings. "That's how I wanted it. Well, 'live' at least, not so
much spontaneous. As if I could do anything at any point. On the new stuff I've really worked on the beats to make them sound more like live drumming, a bit more
funky. It's partly a reaction against all this clicky, computer-drum type stuff. There's loads of drum'n'bass at the moment which has really square rhythms and you
can almost see them in your head as little squares. I just like funky stuff."
No doubt the beats at his new club night at the Blue Bote, the teasingly named Correct,
will be similarly urgent. A funky education fom old school hip-hop to early hardcore and jungle/drum'n'bass. Then there's the small matter of a new album he has
just finished putting together for Mo' Wax, a quadruple vinyl set which runs for a mammoth 140 minutes. With Luke Vibert, the beats just flow. And whatever he
does, you can be sure of one thing: this boy's got rhythm.
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