Session Transcript:
Kode9
Red Bull Music Academy, Melbourne 2006

The video stream for this lecture can be watched here.

When your glass starts a slow journey across the bar without you being able to see it or hear it crashing on the floor, most likely you’re at one of the infamous dubstep nights in East or South London. What matters is sound not looks, for the industrial surroundings of Croydon are not much of a sight anyway. So it seems adequate that the emperor of many things dubstep is a humble and wise Scotsman transplanted from Glasgow to London.

RBMA: »All the way from Camberwell, South London, a bit of the monster flight the other day, I do believe you are doing OK now, Mr. Kode 9.«

(applause)

»All is well with you, my friend?«

Kode 9: »Everything is good.«

RBMA: »Apart from those 4 AM wake-ups, though. A bit of a shaky one.«

Kode 9: »Yeah, I’m not altogether here. Part of me is.«

RBMA: »Over the last 10, 15 years with this whole evolution of what has been known as the UK hardcore continuum we have seen so many incredible forms of vibrant music birth, forth and then split of in these little subgenres and everything. Obviously, with the whole thing that started emerging 'round about ‘96/’97, the whole garage thing, so many variants and what have you, the one that has been winning favor in recent years - not just in London but all across the world now - is this thing known as dubstep. I’m sure a lot of people in this room have heard many tracks of this genre, a lot of them are even making it, but for those that haven’t, should we have a little bit of an example of this thing?«

Kode 9: »Yeah. This is a bit crackly. It’s a dubplate of a remix I did of a reggae band called Massive. It’s a relatively good way to introduce this sound, I think.«

RBMA: »How old is this tune?«

Kode 9: »A couple of months, it’s not old.«

(music: Massive Music - Find My Way (Kode 9 remix))

RBMA: »We should really be asking for a rewind on that one. It’s some pretty heavy business. What was the name of that track?«

Kode 9: »I think they are called Massive, the track is called Find My Way.«

RBMA: »So they are not in particular a group you are closely tied with? You were approached to do the remix?«

Kode 9: »I think they are from, I’m not sure where they are from. I was approached by someone in Holland.«

RBMA: »The first thing one notices when talking to you is the accent, you are not originally from London. Where was home once upon a time?«

Kode 9: »I grew up in Glasgow in Scotland. And I’ve lived in London for about eight, nine years. Basically I got drawn to London because of pirate radio. People used to send me tapes, old jungle] tapes in particular. Before I got to London, I used to DJ jungle, when I got to London I started playing UK garage and so I’ve always followed that mutation of London-based hardcore continuum music.«

RBMA: »Yeah, I was going to say I’ve mentioned before, you read it in a lot of blogs, this whole notion of the continuum. Can you explain a little bit further this whole notion?«

Kode 9: »Yeah, I suppose it’s what happened when acid house in the UK collided with Afro-Carribean music culture in London in particular. So it is dub, reggae and dancehall. And when these collided in the early ‘90s you got when hardcore and then, most importantly for me jungle, ‘93, ‘94, drum 'n' bass, UK garage, currently grime and dubstep. So the hardcore continuum is a way of understanding that evolution of music, because there are all kinds of similar in way. All different speeds, but at the same time coming from a similar place and always using pirate radio as a media platform, because these musics haven’t, at least initially, a lot of media coverage. So what’s interesting about them in a way is, that they are musical genres, but at the same time they come with their own media. And with grime just now they come with their own DVD and mixtape culture as well.«

RBMA: »When you talk about this kind of continuum of hardcore and what have you, obviously, at any kind of dancehall-based gig you’ve got a vibe, there has always been a certain electric vibe with hardcore and with jungle and everything. Are you finding that same kind of electric vibe, let’s say that A.W.O.L. kind of thing in the mid-'90s at jungle gigs, are you finding it at dubstep gigs now?«

Kode 9: »I suppose more so now. Dubstep started as a kind of little subgenre of UK garage, the more instrumental side and the more reggae-influenced side of UK garage. I’ve been playing that abroad for about six years and I’ve played to lots of tiny, tiny crowds in my time. It’s only in the last year that it really starts picking up and the dancehalls are full and the vibe is much better. It’s spreading.«

RBMA: »We go a bit further into that in a second. Give people an idea about where you’ve come from and your upbringing. Tell us about Glasgow first of all. Just as a city, what is Glasgow all about?«

Kode 9: »It’s pretty industrial, unfriendly place.«

RBMA: »Musically, was it a very inspiring place?«

Kode 9: »Musically? Not particularly for me. It rained a lot. That can be quite inspiring, I suppose. But I didn’t really, I don’t have a lot of Scottish musical influences.«

RBMA: »When you talk about being sent pirate radio tapes what were the shows and in particular who were the DJs that when the tape turned up in the mail you was like: "Yeah, can’t wait to play it."?«

Kode 9: »I used to get lots of tapes of, I think it was Rude FM from East London. I can’t remember specific DJs, but when I was living outside of London about '95 I used to come down religiously every Sunday to go to Metalheadz. That period '94 to '97 when there was everything from ragga, jungle right through the Metalheadz type stuff and it all existed. Not necessarily played in the same clubs, but you could buy all and you could mix it all and that was kind of exciting for me because it was the first time I’ve experienced that kind of music, which potentially integrated every single kind of music I had ever heard on one kind of speed and one kind of set of rhythms.«

RBMA: »When you go back to the the first traces of this thing known as dubstep a lot of people reference El-B. It kind of seems that a lot of guys like El-B and Steve Gurley they were checking out hits, kind of more that digital, Photek, kind of moody vibe. Would you say they played quite a bit of influence? You know, a large part influence from those guys?«

Kode 9: »I think because Steve Gurley used to be in Foul Play, so there were direct jungle linkages and I think, definitely, the early dubstep stuff was really coming out of the Metalheadz related side of drum 'n' bass. And a lot of people in dubstep now, everyone went through that jungle thing at various stages. A lot of people in the scene were maybe between 10 and 15, but one way or another, whether they were listening to tapes at school or whatever, one way or another it’s in their blood and in their genes.«

RBMA: »It’s interesting to know, in the middle of the '90s, especially in the UK, the whole jungle explosion. So many people growing up were all consuming and for a lot of people they got to a point where they got fed up with this whole genre. At what point in time were you just obviously so deep into this music and then you decide: "No, what has happened here?"«

Kode 9: »With jungle and drum 'n' bass I was so immersed as a listener. Music, like any drug stops working at a certain point, and for me it stopped working when I started realising without thinking about it that I was buying the same record. It was taking my money for no reason (laughter). I suppose, I completely lost control by that point. That must have been about '97, '98 and then I started hearing some of the early 2-step stuff. The stuff with the big basslines and the kind of reggae ...«

RBMA: »The Ripgroove kind of …«

Kode 9: »Yeah, I wasn’t really into that speed garage thing. I’ve never been a huge fan of 4/4 music. So when the speed garage started to break up, rhythmically break up and become a little bit more intricate and jungle-influenced, not just in the basslines but also in the rhythms.«

RBMA: »Have you got anything on your computer here? Maybe this might be a bit of a far cry but have you got any jungle stuff on your computer?«

Kode 9: »I don’t have any. Jungle is my biggest influence and I haven’t got any with me.«

RBMA: »Have you got any early 2-step stuff there?«

Kode 9: »Ahem …«

RBMA: »I’m putting you in a spot a bit here.«

Kode 9: »I could play an early Horsepower thing.«

RBMA: »Yeah!«

Kode 9: »So this would have been about 2000. Here we go, here is an El-B thing. This would be about 2000.«

RBMA: »So should it be noted that dubstep DJs they don’t kind of have that fevered thing that jungle DJs had of all your tunes must be only a week old at the latest?«

Kode 9: »Oh, we’ve got that. Yeah, it’s a quite a very intense dubplate culture. Again, it has inherited that. It’s a tune called Buck & Bury.«

(music: El-B - Buck & Bury)

RBMA: »So again, this is Horsepower Productions?«

Kode 9: »No, that’s El-B.«

RBMA: »El-B, sorry. Buck & Bury is the name of the track?«

Kode 9: »Yeah.«

RBMA: »So obviously, you’ve spent a bit of time commuting from Glasgow to London to go to parties and what have you. When you first moved there and were living there what was London like for you? Pretty easy to all of a sudden get involved into music?«

Kode 9: »It’s pretty intense. See, my first involvement in music in London was I set up a website called Hyperdub, which later became my record label. Hyperdub was a kind of web magazine where I quickly became a journalist and interviewed everyone. All the producers that I was interested in from the last five, six years. So, people like Lemon D and Dillinja, American hip hop producers like El-P, German dub kind of electronic dub producers like Jan Jelinek and then all of the early dubstep producers, El-B, Horsepower but also people in UK garage at the time, Ms Dynamite. We kind of followed that through right up to Dizzee Rascal or Wiley and later in 2003 and ‘4. And then we started the label in 2004 and I didn’t have any time so I kind of trashed the website.«

RBMA: »Was the website quite a bit of a focal point for people that are interested in this kind of new stem of bass culture if you will?«

Kode 9: »Yeah, because I think it was kind of unique in the way it brought all this kind of bass musics together and it was also really the main place to find out about that side of UK garage. Not just in that kind of press release style of interviews but in kind of in-depth interviews. So it provided a bit of background that didn’t exist in other media platforms in other media at that point.«

RBMA: »And also it was created to help you with, I wouldn’t say getting acceptance, but all of a sudden it’s you meeting all these guys hanging out with them and they were like: "Yeah, right, this guy is on the level." So it wasn’t such a close knit thing anymore.«

Kode 9: »Yeah, I mean it was tiny at that point. I wasn’t exactly difficult to meet the people that were involved in it because it was only a handful of producers and DJs playing that sound specifically. Then pretty quickly I started doing pirate radio on Rinse FM in East London. When I started I was doing the show after Roll Deep on the Tuesday night. It was kind of weird because they don’t usually have Scottish people on East London pirate radio. So I didn’t talk for a few months, I just used to bring lots of jingles. Yeah, that’s how it kind of happened.«

RBMA: »I mean, was there a bit of a focal point as well for the music, there was a record store called Big Apple in Croydon? Tell us a bit about this place.«

Kode 9: »Yeah, Croydon is, I suppose, the home of dubstep. Croydon is, for people that don’t know, is like a small city right in the South part of London and it’s kind of grim. I’ve heard people describe it as the Detroit of England. I’m not sure that’s accurate mainly because I haven’t been to Detroit, but it’s kind of grim and I suppose you can hear that a little bit in how dark some of the music is. But there was a record shop in Croydon called Big Apple, staffed by all the the main, all the early dubstep DJs called DJ Hatcha. And that shop worked as a kind of hub for the music. Horsepower were from Croydon as well, Benga & Skream, who are big producers in dubstep just now, but at the time were like 14, 15, 16. And, I suppose, latterly probably the core of the dubstep scene now evolves around a night called DMZ and these producers calles Digital Mystikz, Loefah and Skream and they are again from that kind of area of South London that’s quite near or just north of Croydon.«

RBMA: »I mean at what point did grime and dubstep start notably branching off? When did this word dubstep first start making an appearance?«

Kode 9: »They both came from UK garage. Grime really came out of the MC side of UK garage, So Solid Crew, Pay As You Go Crew, and dubstep came from Steve Gurley, El-B, Zed Bias, that kind of bassline side of garage. And they kind of went off in their own directions in a way. But, I suppose, they were all featured on Rinse one way or another. So Rinse held them together as latter forms of UK garage, which eventually became their own thing. So there are kind of two separate scenes now, but there is a number of people who occupy some kind of space in the middle such as Plasticman/Plastician, who comes more from the grime side of things but kind of dabbles in dubstep and I’m kind of the opposite way around. I come more from dubstep but I’m dabbling a bit of grime now and then.«

RBMA: »Is it very much, it seems, like a bit of a regional thing as well?«

Kode 9: »It’s just south of East London so I tend to think people from London can be very infatuated by their local area and as an alien to London, as an outsider I kind of have a slightly different perspective. I’m not too fuzzed about playing stuff from East London and South London because they are like four miles away (laughter). It’s not a big deal for me.«

RBMA: »I mean, you’ve mentioned it before, and it has been said many times over the years about the role of pirate radio in the place, but just to give people an idea, just how important has pirate radio been in getting dubstep out there and in particular why this end of the norm, if you will?«

Kode 9: »Literally, the way it has worked in the last year or so is that there is a number of DJs on Rinse FM, and occasionally, when things are working properly, that pirate station is streamed online. If it’s not people record it. People record your show immediately after it has gone out live to the local area and there is a website called barefiles.com, which is this huge archive of grime and dubstep radio shows. That kind of connection between local pirate radio station and a web archive of all the mixes is kind of been quite an amazing fuel injection of how the music has spread.«

RBMA: »How about internationally as well? I mean, a lot of people via that website in particular?«

Kode 9: »That’s what I mean. Yeah, definitely.«

RBMA: »You talked about it before with the DMZ thing. Every scene historically has an epicenter, be it like Paradise Garage, be it Blue Note, be it Co-Op for what has happened with the broken beat thing, but there was a night called Forward and that played a very vital role in the rise of dubstep?«

Kode 9: »Yeah, that was the original dark garage night in a way. From about 2001 it was every two weeks on a Thursday, it started on a Sunday night at the Velvet Room in Charing Cross Road, then it moved to Plastic People in Shoreditch in East London, which really is a tiny little club that has got an amazing soundsystem. I think the thing about dubstep is we’ve kind of been spoiled with soundsystems. Both Plastic People, where Forward is now every Friday night, and DMZ, which is at Mass in Brixton, the soundsystems are just like as you would want them to be for bass music. In other words, they are not just clear soundsystems, the are very physical experiences. Everything is vibrating. Things are sliding across surfaces, the whole place is vibrating. Dubstep doesn’t really work unless everything is shaking.«

RBMA: »And what’s the vibe like at the Digital Mystikz night? From what I’m told it’s like you got no lighting in there, it’s just dark.«

Kode 9: »We’re not really into lighting, we’re into dark rooms and everything vibrating. It’s very stripped down, minimal and simple like that. It’s about the sound.«

RBMA: »And whereas the grime thing has to a certain degree been very much about the MCs, like you mentioned before, dubstep is not so much. Do you find MCs at these nights at Forward?«

Kode 9: »Yeah, I mean Forward has always had a bit of a mixture of grime and dubstep. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll hear a grime MC on dubstep and vice versa. But the MCs in dubstep tend to be hosts more, kind of just keeping you company alongside the music. At the same time the stuff that I do is a bit strange for dubstep because I work with a vocalist called Space Ape.«

RBMA: »How long have you been working with him for?«

Kode 9: »Since 2003. The first release that we did is kind of weird.«

RBMA: »Shoud we have a listen to it?«

Kode 9: »Yeah. It was a cover of Prince's Sign O' The Times.«

(music: Kode 9 & Space Ape - Sine Of Dub / applause)


RBMA: »How did you meet Space Ape?«

Kode 9: »He was just an old friend of mine. That was the first track we did together so it was a quick thing, about half an hour. He has never done any vocals before, so it was like, 'How do you get him to do vocals quickly, somewhere to start?' "What’s your favorite track?" "Prince - Sign O' The Times," boom, get the record. You got the record. Where’s the lyrics? There’s the lyrics. Read the lyrics. I just put down a quick bass thing with some effects, boom, pitched his voice down a bit.«

RBMA: »Yeah.«

Kode 9: »That’s that.«

RBMA: »What was the initial reaction to the tune? «

Kode 9: »Well, it doesn’t really fit in anywhere.«

RBMA: »Right. But obviously the tempo, the tempo was fine to play it in sets.«

Kode 9: »I mean, it wasn’t deliberately like this, but people heard it as some kind of connection to Berlin dub people like Rhythm & Sound. And also that time, 2002, 2003 in grime there was a thing called the devil mix. People like Wiley were making these tracks that were just bass, no beats in them at all, the MCs would spit over. So some people made connections to Berlin dub, some people thought it was some connection to these devil mixes in grime. It’s just random, really.«

RBMA: »Obviously, someone else who came through a little bit later but ended up on your label, it seems like there is an obvious connection there. Tell us a little bit about Burial.«

Kode 9: »Yeah, Burial was a guy who got in contact with me when I started the web magazine, because he was really into that side of UK garage. He’s been sending me tunes for about five or six years, four or five years. I put out a 12” of his last year. We just pressed up 500 and they sold quite quickly, so that was cool. And then he kept sending me stuff and the stuff kept getting better so I was like this clearly, maybe I should put out an album. So we put out the album 'round about May and for that kind of music it’s been quite staggering the feedback that we’ve had about it and how well it has sold. Again, it doesn’t really fit in anywhere. It’s definitely a tangent from what dubstep is, but it sounds kind of vaguely reminiscent of particularly Pole from Berlin but with a lot of UK garage syncopations and also quite dark and melancholic.«

RBMA: »One thing you touched on before is the whole thing with a lack of MCs or MCs being more hosts at dubstep nights. I think kind of one of the biggest problems that happened with drum 'n' bass especially was with MC-led nights music became more about rewinds. How many rewinds can you get? And all of a sudden producers were making tunes that all of a sudden revolved more about a heavy impact rock than just actually constructing a tune. Do you agree that it’s something possibly happening with grime and there is a correlation between MCs and that kind of style of production?«

Kode 9: »Generally, I really like MCs. I like playing with MCs. A lot of people in dubstep are kind of: “Instrumental music, this is what it’s about.” I’m not really like that. I mean, everybody has got their own theory about, if anything, what went wrong with jungle and drum 'n' bass and there are fifty different theories around. My thing is just that it didn’t do anything for me anymore. Certainly, my issue wasn’t MCs. If anything, my issue was that a certain side of it took over, the side that was very gnarly, noisy and aggressive and rhythmically really stupid, really simple and boring. When you consider where jungle came from, it is the most rhythmically exciting music I’ve ever heard in my life. And that it could end up like that it’s a weirdness.«

RBMA: »Yeah. I mean, for so long so many producers and people talked about the fact that maybe - and Fabio touched on it - you saying that the fact when music is 175 bpm there is not much space to breathe. And if the music was slowed down, you had a little bit more space to breathe then it could inject so much new life. Do you think dubstep to a certain degree offers that as a bit of a solution of that? «

Kode 9: »I think it is definitely a counterbalance to where drum 'n' bass went, getting faster and faster going towards gabber. Just by not only being around 140 bpm but also being a lot of stuff now is halfstep, so that feels even slower than that. It definitely has drawn a lot of people away from drum 'n' bass and it definitely is a kind of counterbalance to the way drum 'n' bass evolved. I remember interviewing Lemon D and Dillinja in about 2001 and they were moaning about how fast everything was getting and said they were going to do stuff at 150. I think it is like the peer pressure of the dancefloor. What drugged-up ravers crave, demanding, is so overwhelming a pressure for these guys who are earning a living from it. I haven’t heard many people trying slowing it down, really. Not really.«

RBMA: »If anything, it’s getting even faster. Another thing that’s kind of interesting is there has always been these subgenres kind of all of a sudden split off into microgenres and you kind of said this halfstep thing there. Are you starting to say that even within dubstep there are new little side genres popping up? And what exactly is halfstep? Do you have an example of that?«

Kode 9: »For me, dubstep is lots of different rhythmic styles. I think halfstep is one of the most simplest styles. It has got lots of space, there is lots of space in the mix, which for me is perfect for having MCs. I mean, it sounds a little bit like instrumental grime, the production values are slightly different, the sub bass is much stronger. So it feels quite slow. I play you a track I did with Space Ape that is kind of a halfstep thing. The thing with halfstep is the bass that drives the music along as opposed to the drums, because the drums are quite sparse. This is a track called Backward from earlier this year.«

(music: Kode 9 & The Space Ape – Backward)

»So halfstep is basically that kick, snare, ‘boom, tchk’.«

(continues music: Kode 9 & The Space Ape - Backward / applause)

»It’s actually kind of weird because it feels slow, but actually people go off to it big style in a dance.«

RBMA: »They’re not actually dancing on the half?«

Kode 9: »No, it’s almost like they are imagining that it’s fast music. They’re adding in the double time.«

RBMA: »The same thing that people were doing with jungle.«

Kode 9: »The opposite of what they were doing with jungle. With jungle you had the slow dub reggae basslines and double time breaks and here it’s almost like in dubstep the double time breaks had been subtracted and so it is actually quite sparse and almost sluggish, but because people dance double time to it, people that are really logged into it, anyway. There is a lot of lazy skanking going on, but people that are properly logged are dancing double time. It’s kind of weird to watch because it’s quite slow music.«

RBMA: »Are there many other producers doing halfstep at the moment?«

Kode 9: »Yeah, probably the best halfstep producer in a way, that prototypical halfstep sound is a guy called Loefah. Just got huge brick walls of bass and very, very sparse, minimal rhythms.«

RBMA: »One thing I was going to ask as well is it kind of seemed when grime kicked off you had a lot of very young producers and what allowed for the growth of the music and that there was so much coming out was the fact that all these young kids had easy access to very basic software like Fruity Loops and what have you. For example, what would your production set up look like? Are there still a lot of people producing on Fruity?«

Kode 9: »Yeah, I think a lot of the kids. I mean, Skream is going to be here in a few weeks, I think he still does most of his stuff on Fruity. And the stuff he gets out of Fruity is amazing. I used to use Fruity years ago, but I’ve been producing for ages so I pretty much use anything, but standardly Reason and Logic. I don’t think it really matters what software you use. I mean, Skream in particular is kind of the best example why it doesn’t really matter. If you can get what he gets out of Fruity Loops, then that’s cool.«

RBMA: »And, obviously, with very bass heavy music you could say that monitors are an essential part of your kit?«

Kode 9: »Yeah, that’s kind of standard. The hardest thing with this music is kind of referencing what it sounds like in the studio to what it sounds like on a huge soundsystem. With all music, really. It’s very easy to overdo the bass in your studio and we all get our dubplates cut at the same place in South London, a place called Transition. They describe what they do sometimes as bass management, because often they’re just having to mould the bass, like hold it back a little bit or bring it out or just control it a little bit, so it works on a big system effectively. And they have been cutting dub and reggae for ages, they did jungle and now they are doing most of the dubstep stuff.«

RBMA: »I mean, that’s interesting to know with what’s happening now with the technology that’s available and pretty much every single other genre of music. Everyone is going in the direction of your Serato and drum 'n' bass DJs are pretty much the last bastion to a certain degree of dubplate culture. It seems like their whole culture is still alive and well in dubstep.«

Kode 9: »It is. It’s very strong in dubstep. I’m certainly not anti-digital stuff, but I prefer the sound of vinyl and I like the sound of dubplates. I don’t mind a bit of crackle in my music, because dubplates only last for 30 or 40 plays. So quite quickly you start getting crackle. I think it’s a kind of useful way of building a sound if a handful of producers are all cutting dubplates. In other words they are all getting mastered, they try to getting mastered at an early stage before they come out, so that immediately creates a level of playing feud. So when you hear the stuff out you can compare it to what other producers are doing, because it’s all going through the same mastering process. The thing it’s been quite useful for people trying to build their sound up. You know, building from nothing, really. Like, inventing what is a new variant of this hardcore continuum that we talked about.«

RBMA: »For drum 'n' bass it was Music House, where is the spot for dubstep?«

Kode 9: »Transition. It is in Forest Hill in South London.«

RBMA: »What about the costs side of things? Cutting plates economically can stack up on you.«

Kode 9: »Yeah, everyone is in it for the love. So it is £30 to cut a 10” dubplate, two tracks, £50 for a 12”. Yeah, there are some real maniacal dubplate cutters, who spend so much money doing it, but nobody is particularly making a lot of money out of it, but everybody seems quite happy to put money into their sound. That’s the way things work.«

RBMA: »Let’s say, for example, someone got booked to play at Forward and they turned up with this CD wallet that probably...«

Kode 9: »People do play with CDs, especially on a soundsystem like Plastic People’s, which is such a beautiful soundsystem. The sound is so clean and the room is cool. CDs just hurt your ears in there, it’s very toppy and the sound is very sharp if you come with CDs. I don’t think it has to be like that, but I think that maybe that’s one of the downsides if people are doing stuff on Fruity and then going straight to CD without any mastering in between.«

RBMA: »Are you also getting this element of VIP culture as well, where you do special one-off’s for maybe yourself or for close friends who are DJs?«

Kode 9: »Yeah, to a certain extent. When you can cut a dubplate in one day then people do all kinds of little different versions for different occasions, but there’s not a lot of money in the scene so it is not as if everybody thinks he’s special. People are generally quite happy to just cut their tunes.«

RBMA: »Going back to your own productions, how does the process work for you? Do you start with just some beats or you kind of work around a sample?«

Kode 9: »I wouldn’t say there is a particular formula. Usually, I hear a piece of music and something will stay with me and I only notice it three weeks later that I’m humming this tune. Then, often the way it works, because I got a melodica and I’m a big Augustus Pablo fan and I can’t play any instruments; so a melodica is kind of cool for me because I can work out tunes relatively quickly while being over your computer. So I work out a tune and then take it to the computer, play it on a MIDI keyboard or whatever. That’s a way I made a few tunes like that.«

RBMA: »And on average, how long do you spend on a tune?«

Kode 9: »The first tune I played was like a day. The very first tune I released, one without beats, Sine Of The Dub, was a couple of hours.«

RBMA: »Yeah.«

Kode 9: »Some tunes take weeks. Again, there is no kind of set rule.«

RBMA: »In recent times you’ve been working hard finishing your album. Tell us a bit about the album.«

Kode 9: »The album is called Memories Of The Future and it should be out in a couple of weeks, and it includes four or five of the early Hyperdub releases and lots of new stuff. It’s all myself with Space Ape. It’s kind of dark. I mean, I don’t find it dark, but people tell me it’s dark. I find it quite uplifting. But I think I’m a bit twisted like that.«

RBMA: »Have you got that video here?«

Kode 9: »No, I don’t.«

RBMA: »You don’t have the video?«

Kode 9: »No.«

RBMA: »OK.«

Kode 9: »It’s the video for one of the tracks that’s on the album that a couple of art students made for us, which is on my MySpace. If anyone wants to check it. But it kind of sums up, the video sums up quite well where or what we are getting at.«

RBMA: »Should we have a listen to something off the album?«

Kode 9: »Yeah. This is the first track of the album. It’s called Glass.«

(music: Kode 9 & The Space Ape – Glass)

»That’s the first tune of the album.«

(applause)

»This is a little bit more upbeat. The tune is called Portal.«

(music: Kode 9 & The Space Ape – Portal / applause)