CL = Clublife Magazine
LV = Luke Vibert
CL: Well, let's see. I always start out asking: Is there any question that
interviewers always ask you that you wish they wouldn't?
LV: Um, no actually, no there isn't! There was actually, just one question a
couple of days ago a guy asked me that I wish he hadn't. His first question
was: What happens after you die? And I thought Oh God!
CL: Er, I wouldn't have thought of that! (general laughing)
[...]
CL: Well, cool...I was glad to see Throbbing Pouch finally get a domestic
release!
LV: Yeah, yeah...I wanted to make it different, actually, I'm annoyed, but
it's
exactly the same as the English one. Because I did a Japenese one as well,
which had a few different tracks on it. Actually, though, they've both
turned up
now on other things: there was one out on Chill Out Or Die called "River",
and
then there's one called "Indian Giver".
CL: That one ended up on Chill Out Or Die America. I was sad to see
though, that At Atmos wasn't with the...
LV: Was that free with the...?
CL: ...free with, for us, the import.
LV: It was with the import, but it wasn't with the domestic release? Yeah,
that's a bit of a shame. I've got a Plug, jungle album thing that I'm
compiling at
the moment. I'm going to give away Plug 1, 2, and 3 on CD with it because
they
weren't on CD as well. That's why I did it with At Atmos, because it wasn't
on
CD.
CL: Great! That's the one thing I haven't been able to get--any of your Plug
stuff.
LV: Yeah, it's hard enough to get over here as well. I've always got loads--
well, not loads--but a few people coming up to me Oh I really want to get
Plug 1,
I just can't see it anywhere!...and then I see one for two quid in an
exchange.
(laughs) Yeah, I'm not sure when the Plug stuff is going to be out--probably
won't be out for ages--but you'll probably be able to get it on import.
CL: Well, what are you doing right now?
LV: Well, I just did a nasty--well, no I can't say that, but--track, a remix
for
these Swedish geezers called Ohm[?], who I've never heard of, and I didn't
really want to set my gear up because I've just moved house last week, and my
sampler must have taken a bit of a knock in the move because the SCSI bit at
the back, which connects it up to the hard disk thing, isn't working at all,
so I
have to load all these tiny disks into the front, and it took me ages longer
than it
should have done. But I had to do it by the Monday, because I'd left it till
the last
thing, because I'm moving, and I really needed the cash, so I had to set all
my
stuff up slightly dodgily. But now I'm going to have a bit of a quiet spell,
I think,
because I've got to get my sampler fixed, which just takes ages over here--I
figure it'll be gone for a couple of weeks. But that's it, yeah, compiling
the Plug
album, and I've done a couple of slow tracks recently, but mainly they've
been
drum & bass things, but I've got another Mo' Wax e.p. to do as well. And
then
an album for them after that, but that's all kind of undone at the moment.
And
then another Wagon Christ album next year. But that's thinking way too far
ahead for my liking!
CL: Get to that follow-up album right away, excellent! And I see that you've
been doing a lot of remixes, too, on Further Self Evident Truths. Do you
like
doing remixes?
LV: Yeah, well they sort of have their good and bad points too. I wan't to
keen on doing this last thing because I didn't like much about the track, so
I
had to basically do one of my tracks completely and then put a tiny bit of
their
thing in that I liked, which is a bit annoying because I kind of feel like it
should
be mine rather than theirs. But...I needed that one for money anyway. But
the
one I did before was sort of a total different one for Aphex Twin's label.
You've
heard of a group called the Gentle People?
CL: Yeah! But I haven't heard it yet.
LV: Well, it's all sample stuff and loops, but it's old easy-listening stuff,
and
then they've got a couple of breezy, girl-singing...vocalist, and a guy
vocalist,
and I did a drum & bass mix of them which was really good fun, and I kept
loads of their stuff in it because I liked it, so that was much more
enjoyable to
do, but it was a bit of a chore. Sometimes it's a bit of a chore, a bit
cheezy in a
bad way.
CL: Now is this the kind of stuff you've been doing all along? Because I
bought Phat Lab Nightmare ages and ages ago, and then thought it was
hysterical when I heard that that was just a weird thing, not even what you
were
really doing then.
LV: No, it wasn't...yeah, true. It was the same thing with the first e.p. as
well,
really, the Sunset Boulevard thing. Because I got a call off Rising High,
rather
than me sending them any stuff I got a call off them because, I can't
remember,
they heard a tape or something off someone and it had my number on. And I'd
only done tracks at this point--because it was '92 or '3 or something--with
my
mate Jeremy because he had most of the gear, he had a 4-track and a couple
of keyboards and I just had drum machine and an echo! I used to do all my
stuff with him, and...
CL: This is Jeremy Simmons [member of Bark Psychosis and collaborator
with Luke on the Vibert & Simmons Weirs project]?
LV: Yeah, and they said Do you want to send us up an e.p.?, and I said Yeah
OK, phoned up Jeremy and he wasn't into it for some reason, I don't know if
he
didn't like Rising High or I can't remember, but I had to do it on my own.
So I
just did it in a couple of days, and I was thinking Yeah, better make it a
bit
techno-y and some such thing, and I sent it up to them and they liked it and
they
said Have you ever done any ambient stuff? And for some reason I just lied
again, because I thought that if I said no that they wouldn't release an
album of
mine, so I said Yeah, yeah! And they said Well, we'd like you to do an album
for
our ambient series, and I was like OK, cool. And there was this big poster
that
was called The Ambient Collection with me at the end, and then Pete Namlook
and all these other geezers. It was a bit cheezy because I was still
listening to
hip-hop all the time!
CL: But were the tracks you were doing at that time...?
LV: Well, I really liked them, and I still like them now, they're still
totally me. I
was just actually trying to be a bit techno-y or something; but also I think
the
major reason for the sort of change in style...I really like to still do kind
of acidy
things, and more keyboardy stuff, but all my keyboards broke from that
time--all
I've got now is my sampler at the moment. I don't really like any of the new
keyboards that I've been looking at; I think I'm going to have to get old
ones
again, play around with them. But mainly I think that's it, when things like
the
101 break, these old analog things--I dropped a pint of rye bean onto one of
my
keyboards and it totally fucked it up.
[...ridiculous conversation about various ways to destroy keyboards...]
CL: Well, am I correct in that acid house was the first sort of electronic
stuff
that you got into?
LV: Yeah, although it was hip-hop really because it was much more...When I
was 10 or something I really liked Melle Mel, Doug-E-Fresh "The Show", and
all
the sort of bigger tunes that were coming out, and I liked it till I was
something
like 13, and then for some unknown reason went off dance music altogether,
got into the more indie side. Probably, I think, because of my friends--my
friends totally changed at that point because I moved school and town, moved
about 20 miles away in Cornwall to a different town when my parents split up
and we went with mummy. And then I went to a different school, and that was
when I grew my hair, turned into a bit of a punk-rocker eventually, by the
time I
was about 16. Had a wicked Mohican, though!...really big, spiky Mohican.
Yeah, and then got back into it again through live..actually no it's not
true,
because I actually always listened to it even in the years between; I
listened to
the old ones; I've still got all my old rap records like Melle Mel, really
scratched-
up and fucked Run DMC records and things like that. I've always kind of
liked
them because I've always liked loads of different music, but the outside
image I
had was more sort of indie, rock-y--not rock, God--punk kind of thing.
CL: So you listened to it, you just didn't always admit to it.
LV: Yeah, I'd just be a bit embarrassed going around with all these genuine
punks. And then I think another big thing was getting into pot-- when I
started
smoking it, it's not that it changed me a lot but it made me relax a lot
more, and
I didn't go agg so much; I used to be more of a drinker, go out on a weekend,
more--not normal, but--more sort of an everyday-type thing, but now I stay in
a
lot more and do my own thing.
CL: What do you think has had the biggest influence on what you're doing
now?
LV: I think it would have to be--it sounds absurd--but just life, because it
would be stupid saying something like pot because it wouldn't be at all, I'd
be
doing it whether it was that or not, but yeah just sort of whatever's
happened to
me. But I don't really know; I'm kind of the worst person to ask always
about my
music although not in any sort of technical way but just thought-wise. I
never
really think anything when I'm doing the tracks; I just sort of clear my mind
and
do little bits and then start linking them all up, and just go usually by
what I don't
like, and take that out, and what I'm left with just arrange all that up.
Just really
work through it, and not have a clue what it's going to turn out like until
it's
finished. That's why I hate to...If I spend any more than three or four days
on a
track I get really--not anal, but--you don't get very objective, you get too
involved.
I've got a mate, he takes like a month, a guy called Graham [Sutton, aka
Voafose, other member of Bark Psychosis] did a mix for me on that last Wagon
Christ e.p., the Redone e.p., he did the Boymerang mix, spent over a month on
it--mad--and most of the time he was just turning things down, spending ages
doing things and then thinking No no no, shit!, and totally scrapping it,
going
back to the beginning, and ended up with a totally different track, but in
the
process lost about five pretty good ones.
CL: So you go more for spontaneity?
LV: Yeah, but not as much as I used to, it used to be...things like Phat Lab
Nightmare, I did that whole album in three days, plus extra tracks that
didn't get
on it, but then the tracks were longer as well, because I didn't have...No I
was
using Cubase, the sequencing thing, but I used to do more of this thing
called
"cycle", where you've just got these block bits going around and you don't
change them at all, you just bring them in and out with a mixing desk, live,
more
spontaneous. I did that up until Throbbing Pouch, and then started arranging
them on the computer, so eventually you just press play and that's the track,
rather than actually doing anything by hand, so it's not quite as spontaneous
now. But I just like generally spontaneous-sounding things; I still do bring
things in in weird places because I like the sound of it. So now it sounds
exactly like it did before, it just takes a lot longer!
CL: Well, that's the thing that trips me out, listening to something like
Throbbing Pouch, is that there are so many things that sound like they
shouldn't work, but somehow they work perfectly!
LV: Well, I think that comes from the mixing-down style that I've developed
(or whatever) comes from hip-hop, definitely. Because when we did stuff on
the
4-track thing of Jeremy's, in '91, and Weirs as well was done on that
4-track,
but
what we started out doing was get a breakbeat album and just play a break for
like four minutes onto one track, and then do a live bass thing, and just
kind of
go like that, and then we'd mix it down onto tape to play to our mates, and
just
bring things in and out on a snare drum, just sort of more loose and more
distorted--well, not literally distorted, but more...
CL: Loose, exactly. Well, now I know you use a lot of samples, but am I
correct in understanding that you don't use any drumloops?
LV: No no, I never don't use anything, there's nothing I don't use--except
for
the only thing I'd never do, or haven't done yet--I just never feel like
sampling off
my peers. I mean, for a couple of the drum & bass things I've sampled off
old
breakbeat records from '91 if I can't find the original break, but then
completely
cut it up from that point. But no, there's nothing I don't use. Usually
it's all
completely samples off other people's records, totally mauled around and...I
still really like making up my own tunes, so I usually just try and take
sounds
rather than loops, and with the beats I started out with just something like
a
five-second sampler, so to save time we'd do something like just take snares,
and middle bits, and just mix them up, make our own beats up, because it
saved loads of time. So I've always liked that kind of sound, I like mixing
beats
up, sort of taking the piss out of the original arrangement of the beat, or
the
same sounds but in a different order.
(cont'd)