At what age did you start playing any instrument? And at what age did you start playing bass and why?
My first instrument was the harmonium, an Indian keyboard with a distinctive organ-like sound, used a lot in qawali and other folk/classical music. I started at maybe 8 years old. It was really an accompaniment to the (Bengali) songs and scales that my aunt was teaching me. The harmonium had a lasting impact, in that I learned about melody and cyclical melodies and how to change the order of notes to create new sequences, how to make the most of very few notes. It was to be a perfect dub training as I later applied these principles unknowingly, to the bass.
Between the ages of 12-14, I studied tabla. I reached only a basic level of competence but I learnt the invaluable lesson of time keeping and about rhythmic cycles- again things that would affect my bass playing.
I didn\'t have the inclination or discipline required to pursue the tabla further but it laid the foundations for my getting into congas and percussion 10 years later. This became my entry point into interacting with other musicians and playing in bands. Musically, the rhythmic phrasing and spacing I learnt from playing congas and bells was the final component I needed to play bass the way I do.
I started bass round the age of 22, I guess. I\'d listened to reggae for a few years, but the bass as a separate entity meant nothing to me till I listened to Robbie Shakespeare in Black Uhuru. Till then it was just another frequency- it was the whole song that had mattered. When I realized he was playing melodies and that these were related to the vocalist\'s melodies, it blew my head off and I knew I wanted to do that. My first attempts involved me playing 2 note conga patterns. I had no one to teach me, so I had to fumble along and it was a while before I extended these lines out and started applying the musical knowledge that I\'d accumulated along the way, but that was lying dormant.
Who inspired you in your early beginnings?
My aunt was of course, was my earliest inspiration but I was doing the music then because we had to, mainly for cultural reasons. My sisters had to do the same. Sometimes I didn\'t enjoy it, \'cause I saw it as extra homework, but of course, I\'m glad now.
Has it always been a dream to been a musician?
As I child, I had no dream of being a musician, no idea I\'d end up doing that. I always wanted to be involved in doing some kind of social work- working with people. It was only by the age of 30, having played and jammed in various bands for less than 10 years, that I thought, “oh, I might just have a go at this.” So you see, I\'m a very late starter.
How did you get involved into giving workshops at Community Music?
When I was about 32, someone saw an ad for this course Community Music was running for musicians to learn how to run music workshops. I applied and got on, and soon realized that my dithering of the last 10 years was over- that I was home. I had already taught basic photography in a couple of places (I\'d studied art and photography) and knew that I enjoyed teaching, so this was now perfect- working with people and playing music. I improved my playing skills, learnt about discipline and organizing and learnt to be articulate, from having been quite a shy person (useful later for interviews!) Most CM tutors were very accomplished musicians from jazz or classical backgrounds. I was less talented. But being largely self-taught meant I had a lot of empathy with students and having learnt music technology skills meant I could run a wide range of workshops. This soon led to my becoming a core tutor.
What other Bands did you play with before ADF?
I used to listen to 23 Skidoo a lot- my first real influence and I still love them. So while studying (or not studying!) on my art course in Nottingham, I formed my first band called \'Unsound\' which lasted 2 gigs. We had congas, an electric heater, a gas cylinder, someone who screamed on the mic, and a bassist who never faced the audience. Percussion, bass and noise: remember that.
My first \'proper\' band was Pinski Zoo, a crazy contemporary jazz outfit from Nottingaham and who still exist. I played congas with them and we toured Poland twice in 1985 and the UK in \'86.
Once back in London in \'86, I hooked up with friend Ramjac to form Delhi For Delhi (DFD)-yes, a silly name but a pun on Dele Fadele, a music journalist whose writing we happened to like (no disrespect intended.) I had known Ramjac since \'81 when we\'d met while studying art in Harrow where we both lived. DFD was significant in that we operated as a bass and drums duo, which really developed my bass playing. The ADF- type bass thinking and arrangements started here. We also programmed drum machines and played complex percussion arrangements. (We actually did a tour supporting Siouxie and the Banshees!) The highlight was playing a mental gig supporting Psychic TV at Dingwalls. We also did a lot of playing at acid house raves as percussionists. Acid house, actually had a big impact on us.
Both of us played congas/percussion in a band called \'Rainy Season, \' round 1987 formed by guitarist James Johnstone from Pigbag and also featuring Pigbag\'s drummer. It was a great band that didn\'t last long, and one of the first to be influenced by \'world music\' before that term existed.
In \'88 I played in a bhangra band, Shava Shava- quite well known at the time in that scene. I was quite useless. I learnt a few songs well from their record, but the rest I tried to play dub lines, which didn\'t work as the melodies changed too much rather than remaining in one key. I couldn\'t get the hang of Punjabi music, but really, it was also a lack of knowledge on the theory of bass. I would do better now. Of course, reggae and dub production came into bhangra big time just a few years later. The important thing was, in my few years of playing, it was the first time I was entirely with other Asian musicians.
In relation to ADF, Headspace was the band that had the most direct impact. It formed out of the work I did with Chandrasonic,
who had answered an ad of mine in 1990. NMC aka Harry K also became a part of this set up after meeting him at a gig supporting The Shamen. Headspace was about experimentation and more of a sound system than a band. It was pretty much a part of the NW London live technology scene, where people put parties on in each others houses. Programming, loops and samples were at its core, augmented by bass, percussion, turntables and whoever else happened to be around. Harry K who did mostly decks and vocals, went on to play with Apollo 440. The music was essentially \'dub noise,\' the first time I used that term and where I really developed as a programmer. It was also where I used Indian percussion loops and vocals for the first time. Headspace\'s \'Savage Culture EP\' of 1992 is almost prototype ADF.
How was it to make soundtracks for old movies (La Haine and Battle Of Algiers) and to play them live?
It was very interesting to do this. The brief was to write a soundtrack to an existing film (which already had its own soundtrack!) and perform it live with the film running- compare it to the old silent movies where an orchestra played in front of the screen. We were all already fans of La Haine and had seen it at the cinema when it\'d first come out in \'95. We all sat at home in front of the TV and video with our samplers and tried out loops and sequences for different scenes. Then we got together and did the same process together. Gradually the whole film got mapped out. Some scenes developed into fully blown pieces where everyone played, others just had a percussion loop. Each scene had different permutations of the band playing. I found it just as interesting when I was not playing but just watching and listening. The fact that there was no incidental music in the film, only music emanating from speakers in the film (TVs, DJ monitors, car stereo etc) made things easier. Those points coincided with no dialogue, only action so we\'d turn the film sound down and play our own tracks, but you did lose the ambience of the film.
It was a very hybrid experience for people- not watching us do a normal set jumping about (we would have got in the way of the subtitles anyway!) and not watching a film in a normal way. There was great potential for it to fail- to alienate both fans of \'La Haine\' and ADF fans- but somehow it worked. Even Kassovitz, the film\'s director watched and liked a performance.
We ended up doing the performance several times, in different environments, including at a rave where people danced and there were two or three screens.
Battle of Algiers was harder and more problematic as it already had a lot incidental music by Ennio Morricone. Somehow we had to navigate round it and integrate our sounds into what was already there. We had violinist Mee on board who greatly helped us blend with the film. The results were less satisfying to me than La Haine, but the second (and last) time we did it, it was better.
When and why did you decide leave ADF?
I left because after 2000, increasingly felt the need to experiment musically and collaborate with other people as in the pre ADF days. I also wanted to have a greater output of material than the one ADF album every 3 years with only 12 tracks. I also wanted to move more towards the dance scene and away from rock.
In 2002, I wrote an album worth of material called, \'Preparing 4 War\' during the run up to the US invasion of Iraq. It was first time I experimented with distorted Indian and Arabic percussion loops alongside dub bass. Throughout 2003/4, I wrote \'Sunandamala Vol 1,\' an album based on the Sunandamala raga sequencer that had generated ADF\'s \'Scaling New Heights\' Again, I developed the distorted sounds but in a more melodic context. In 2005, I pretty much wrote another set that developed into this year\'s \'Emergency Basslines\'. I knew all this music (3 album\'s worth), being instrumental and experimental and not song orientated, would not see the light of day within ADF (though Preparing 4 War tracks briefly appeared on the ADF website).
From 2000 onwards, my listening was changing a lot, becoming mostly instrumental. I was listening to more dub again, 70s Miles Davis, which had a strong dub noise vibe, and improvised and experimental stuff like Don Cherry and Alice Coltrane. Also Bengali Baul music. I\'d pretty much stopped listening to rock and guitar orientated stuff and conventional songs.
I’d stopped writing lyrics (\'New Way New Life\' was the last at that point, till \'Tommorrow Begins Today\') and no longer relating to the song structure (verse/chorus/verse etc) and live I was relating less to the rock format and environment and the fact we were playing sets that varied little over 2 or 3 years and had little room for improvisation. Around, 2002 I was checking what was going on, on the underground and getting into what people were doing with a laptop. I was more interested in the sound than seeing people jumping about a stage. I even did a few bass and laptop gigs with Ramjac in very small clubs and I felt a buzz I hadn\'t felt since the early days.
What convinced me was doing an ADF sound system at Cargo, London with Dhamaal and VU in 2004. Dhamaal did a wicked set, then VU did a real stormer, the best set I\'d seen them do. Then it was me with Sun J on decks and efx and Spex and Lord representing ADF SS. I was sh*tting myself and felt really exposed. But we used Preparing 4 War riddims and I went up and played my heart out like I\'d never done before and after half an hour, I was cruising. By the end of the night, we\'d pulled off a heavy dub set and I knew this is what I wanted to do.
That night I knew I was ready to leave ADF.
How is it, after all these years to be back as a tutor leading workshops again? And what\'s the reason to start giving them again?
I missed teaching and workshops in the last few years of ADF. It was good to try again in the summer of 2006 but more difficult after a break of 10 years. The difficullty was to motivate people who didn\'t all necessarily want to do music. I\'m much better at working closely with people who want to learn a specific software like Ableton or a piece of kit like the MPC1000. I also like teaching bass and percussion. What I\'d most like to do with an educational organization is to help people to adapt their electronic compositions to live performance and help student improve their live show.
How is to be going back to the roots of your music with the songs i\'m hear on your myspace account and hearing songs from Headspace (pre-ADF)?
I\'ve never lost my interest in percussion, basslines and noise. It\'s just got stronger over the years. The big difference between what I did in the Headspace days and the music now, is now I create most of my own sounds and noises and do less sampling. The only things I sample now really, are percussion loops. I record a track of me effecting and distorting a percussion loop, then edit this and create more samples. By continuing this process, one tabla loop may have generated many new tracks or samples. Gone are the days of scavenging around On-U records for little bits of sound. And I don\'t sample any melodies any more. This is to emphasise the basslines\' melodies and also to make people hear the melodies inherent in noise. So everything\'s a lot more stripped down.
Maybe I\'m demanding more of listeners by denying them obvious melodies but at the same time, I\'m trying to make people dance with the phattest possible basslines.
You were involved with Visionary Underground since the early days, playing bass.
How was it to record with them for the \'Keep The Grime On\' album, then play with them in different places such as Albania and Czech Republic?
I\'ve been laying basslines in the studio for VU for quite a while. There were no specific KTGO sessions really, just an ongoing process. I\'d never played within a breakbeat environment before. These were all new rhythms for me, and a different tempo. This made it all the more interesting having played mostly with jungle related rhythms for ten years. I would simply react to what DJ Feelfree had programmed and we\'d identify and edit the best parts. I did a lot of bass like this and would look forward to how he’d edited and arranged the parts the following weeks. I started to do something new as well, which was to \'gate\' my notes. This made me sound even more like a sequencer, like a machine. This meant my bass playing was still developing.
Playing with VU live has been great. VU were already good as a sound system with VJ, DJ and MCs but needed to make the transition to more of a band-like set up with the addition of live bass and drums. This has been achieved successfully. I initially told VJ Coco, I wouldn\'t be moving around too much, just holding down the bassline. But as the gigs progressed and I got accustomed to the new tempo, Feelfree\'s beats and breaks proved to be too infectious for me to stand still. The best so far has been in Prague but we really started to gel as a band back in Italy. We\'ve got a few gigs there in December. The live show is developing the energy of early ADF.
The new VU album is already underway and we\'ll be focusing on recording in the next two months or so for a late spring release, maybe. We\'ve already played four new tunes in the live set. All the new material has been composed from within the current band personnel, not with loads of collaborators as with KTGO. So it all sounds tighter and sharper- definitely something for people to look forward to. I will be practically on all the tracks and have also contributed bits of production here and there.
How did you get into the Belgium hiphop scene with remixing Pitcho and play live with CNN199 (last year at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels)?
I already knew a few people from the Belgium hip hop scene. Pitcho one day heard a track I was working on and said he liked it. He gave me a few of his accapellas and I tried putting the vocals from \'Boucan\' with this track. It worked and that became the \'Boucan Bhajni ragga remix\'. That\'s now on his new album, just released, \'Livraison Speciale\'. I\'d like to re-balance it and release as part of a 4 track Dr Das 12\" vinyl in future. I continued to work on the instrumental version and renamed it \'Pitch Black\' after Pitcho, and that\'s on the \'Emergency Basslines\' album.
I\'d already done a remix of \'Comme on est venu\' for CNN199 (which was never released) when they asked me to guest with them at the AB in Brussels. The occasion was the 30th Anniversary of Hip Hop. There\'s a lot of energy in the Belgian hip hop scene but I\'d love to see it push the boundaries sonically. That\'s why I enjoyed the Pitcho collaboration, \'cause it was hip hop meets \'distortion ragga\'. There\'s still a Belgian rapper/vocalist I\'m keen to work with called Akaam, just need to find the time.
How you would describe your music nowadays?
You can describe what I do now as \\\\\\\"dub noise.\\\\\\\"
It’s conscious music. That means, even though there are no lyrics, I’m still aware of what’s happening in the world, and allowing that awareness to affect the sound and ‘vibe’ of the music. This world is unsettled, in a state of flux. Perhaps you can argue it always has been, but I’m allowing the sound of what I’m doing to reflect this troubled state. My noises and basslines represent anger, militancy, joy, rebellion and celebration-every emotion. If the world were more peaceful and contented, my music would probably sound more spacious and ambient and chilled out. I remember doing hours of ADF interviews where the music itself was not mentioned once. It used to p*ss me off. I hate it when people assume only music with lyrics can express an opinion about the world and that instrumental music can\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t.
There’s a rich and varied body of conscious instrumental music which includes Sun Ra, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Alice Coltrane, Archie Shepp, 23 Skidoo, Nocturnal Emissions, Portion Control, Severed Heads, Material, Underground Resistance, Muslimgauze and Rebel Familia. And of course DUB. At the time dub was developing in Jamaica, the CIA was trying to infiltrate and destabilise the country fearing it was leaning too much towards Cuba and Castro. It’s no wonder to me that dub music has a built in militancy and dread (or had at the beginning). All the mentioned artists, and also Miles Davis with his “Dark Magus” and “On The Corner” albums have inspired me.
When we can expect any music from you?
The “Emergency Basslines” album is out now on VU Recordings. It’s not available yet in any shop, but you can purchase it by going to the VUR Shop on the VU website www.visionaryunderground.com
It would be good if people supported this method. When you buy from a shop, very little money if any, gets back to the artiste whereas when you buy online like this from a true independent, most of the money does go back to the artiste. I’ve financed this album project entirely myself and by borrowing, all purchases are greatly appreciated!
I’m intending to take the Emergency Basslines set out on the road with a minimalist set up –live bass and live electronic drums. It’ll be like Sly & Robbie but with a little added technology. I want it to be heavy but not ‘in your face.’ It’s dub not rock. I already tried it out in Prague before a VU set, with Ramjac on drums and it went down well. There’s a preliminary gig lined up in January in Brussels and maybe more. I’m working on getting a tour together for France/Belgium/Holland.
Can we expect more collabrations between you and Dhamaal SoundSystem/Janaka [Selekta] after Bolbreaker (from the Transition EP) and Podi Menike (which got airplay last year at BBC radio)?
Janaka Selekta was in the UK recently and I laid down loads of basslines for him (as well giving him some bass lessons!) These are all future tracks. The various members of Dhamaal are constantly writing so expect a new album from them in 2008.
There are a couple of remixes I did for them of tracks from their first album: “Chandraya” featuring the excellent vocalist Sukhawat Ali Khan, and “Z Motion.” I’ll put them up on Myspace sometime in the future.
What are the highlights from your career so far?
I’ve many highlights: The “Facts & Fictions” album ‘cause it was the start of a new era, many ADF gigs: The first Fuji Rock Festival; playing in Sofia in Bulgaria; the “Exit Festival” in Serbia in 2002; touring Brazil in 2001; playing at the Montreux Jazz Festival in the Miles Davis Hall; the first ever gig in France in a tiny bar in Lille in 1995-that’s where it all started.
Oh, and playing with Chuck D onstage with us in London in 2004 doing the ADF version of PE’s “Son of a Bad Man” (which I programmed) was a definite highlight and delight.
My latest highlight really is finally completing this Dr Das album. I’ve wanted to make a bassline/dub orientated album for 20 years, ever since I first heard albums like Dub Syndicate’s “Pounding System.”
Are there some new artists who are worth us listening to and looking forward to their new music?
I’ve found loads of great musicians on Myspace, too many to mention them all. People like Badeshi from the UK, Maga Bo from Brazil (I’ve also done a remix for him), Farheen and Arun Chaudhury and LAL from Toronto, Hoody Goody and Phasme from Paris, Dub Killa from Brazil, Dr Dub from Holland, Sudha from London (drummer for Faithless and solo musician), Retrobass from Canada etc. People should take a look round my page. There are great dub artistes, asian technologists, songwriters, all kinds of musician.
Thankfully, there is no shortage of fantastic music, only a serious shortage of conscious and/or intelligent record companies, or good people with money to finance the production and distribution of good music.
Thanks for taking the time to do the interview. Have you maybe still got anything to say to the readers of this interview?
For the ADF fans, don’t worry, the band is still there, and probably always will be.
I need to keep moving, to experiment and find new challenging environments for the bass. That’s my particular musical mission.
I hope you listen to my new stuff with an open mind.
I still believe in conscious music and musicians.
