by chris twomey
At the end of the Aphex Twin's DJ set before Björk's Post tour show in Toronto,
an electronic wheeze introduced the lo-fi breaks of Plug's precisely titled "6.07" track.
Soon the swinging drum & bass rhythms stopped long enough to let a computer voice announce
"this is the freshest."
The assembled Björk fans may not have noticed that they were being treated to one of the
"freshest" examples of a new underground style, but now they can relive the experience
thanks to Trent Reznor's Nothing label. The still-fresh "6.07" is found, along with the rest
of the out-of-print Plug 1 EP, on the second disc provided free with the Nothing/Interscope
version of the Drum & Bass For Papa album. The CD originally came out in England over a
year ago, but with the inclusion of the Plug EPs 1 thru 3, it's certainly worth
buying again.
"The people who come to see me DJ have all got it already, but I think there is a fuck of a lot
more people who haven't even heard of me who should buy it," says Plug's Luke Vibert during a
post-CMJ tour with Aphex Twin and Sneaker Pimps. "Especially because it's on Nothing — a fuck-off
great rock label!"
Vibert is happy because he never got paid for the original releases on the gone-bankrupt label
Rising High. Now that Island/FFRR recently licensed his techno trip-hop Mo Wax-released disc
Big Soup, he has two major American labels promoting his underground music. That great
collection is only his first album released under his own name; his most commonly used moniker
is Wagon Christ (an alter ego signed to Virgin for five albums, the first of which is expected
in March '98). The cleverly sampled and arranged tracks of Wagon Christ would have been his only
claim to fame had he only stayed in his native Cornwall and not moved to London in 1994.
"I'd only just moved and heard just a little bit of jungle on pirate radio when I made the first
Plug EP. But I had a lot of friends who really didn't like drum & bass, so I thought
'shit I don't want to alienate those kind of people.' So I made up a new name for it all and
pretended it wasn't me. And for about six months I managed to get away with it. Of course they're
all into it now. Not so much Plug actually, funnily enough, they prefer the more dance floor
type of stuff, maybe Boymerang or Photek — the not-quite so fucked up stuff."
Vibert was the first among his techno peers to tweak the drum & bass signatures of sub-bass
and breakbeat programming. On Plug 2's "Military Jazz" he began his current style
of mixing hip-hop and drum & bass in a single track, while at the same time extending the
"intelligent" style of drum machine programming into the hyper regions of what is now
"drill 'n bass."
"Aphex said, 'You should try drum 'n' bass with a drum machine,' so I had a quick go with it.
I've kind of stopped doing it now because there are so many people doing it. I just got a bit
bored with all that boys-with-toys sound — it's a bit like a punk d&b movement, which I don't
really feel part of. So when I play my new stuff to Squarepusher or Aphex Twin they say,
'Oh, that's a bit boring.' And then when I play it to any drum & bass friends they say,
'Oh that's still too weird.' I feel like I'm kind of in the middle at the moment, between
the fucked up stuff and the club vibe. But I never wanted to do drum & bass like other people,
I just wanted to have a laugh with it."
Laugh, dance or do nothing at all, but know that when you plug into the music of Luke Vibert
you won't be bored.
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