Kode9 (2006)

For years, Steve Goodman has been molding the sound of the underground. Having discovered dance music and DJing in his native Scotland, Goodman headed south, where he became entranced by jungle’s speed and sampling aesthetic. He combined these musical interests with academia, kicking off a dual career that would last till the early 2010s. But it was the offshoots of UK garage and 2-step – dubstep and grime – that put him on the map in the early 2000s as Kode9, a DJ, producer and driving force behind the Hyperdub label.

In his lecture at the 2006 Red Bull Music Academy, Goodman discussed the early days of the dubstep scene, working with his late partner the Spaceape, discovering Hyperdub’s best-known artist Burial, and the relevance of sonic warfare to dance music.

Hosted by Nick Dwyer Audio Only Version Transcript:

Nick Dwyer

All the way from Camberwell in South London. Had a bit of a monster flight the other day, but I think you’re doing okay now. Mr. Kode9. All has been well with you, my friend?

Kode9

Everything is good.

Nick Dwyer

However those 4:00 AM wake ups though are a bit of a shaky one.

Kode9

Yeah, I’m not altogether here. Part of me is.

Nick Dwyer

I think probably the best way, over the last ten, 15 years of the evolution of what’s been called the UK hardcore continuum, we’ve seen critical forms of vibrant music burst forth and split off into all these little different sub-genres and everything and obviously with the whole evolution of, thank you Marty, of this whole thing emerging around about ’96, ’97, the whole garage thing, there’s been so many variants and what have you. The one that’s been winning favor in recent years, not just in London but across the world is this thing known as dubstep.

I’m sure a lot of people already in this room have heard many tracks of this genre, a lot of them are even making it, but those that haven’t, shall we have a little example of this, then?

Kode9

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 the sound I think.

Massive Music - Find My Way (Kode9 Remix)

(music: Massive Music – “Find My Way (Kode9 remix)” / applause)

Nick Dwyer

We should really be asking for a rewind on that one. It’s some pretty heavy business. What was the name of the artist that originally did that track?

Kode9

I think they’re called Massive. The track’s called “Find My Way.”

Nick Dwyer

They’re not a group that you’re closely tied with? You were approached to do the remix?

Kode9

I’m not sure where they’re from actually. I was approached by someone in Holland to do the remix.

Nick Dwyer

The first thing people must notice when talking to you, good man, is the accent. You’re not originally from London?

Kode9

Yeah.

Nick Dwyer

Where was home, once upon a time?

Kode9

I grew up in Glasgow, in Scotland and I’ve lived in London for about eight or nine years. I basically got drawn to London because of pirate radio. People used to send me tapes, jungle tapes in particular. When I got to London I used to DJ jungle. When I got to London I started playing UK garage. I’ve always just followed that mutation of London-based hardcore continuum music.

Nick Dwyer

I was going to say, it was mentioned before, but you read it in a lot of blogs, this whole notion of the continuum. Can you explain a little bit further this whole notion?

Kode9

I suppose it’s what happened when acid house in the UK collided with Afro-Caribbean music culture in London in particular. It was dub reggae and dancehall. When these collided you got in the early ‘90s hardcore and most importantly for me jungle, in ‘93-’94, drum & bass, UK garage, grime and currently, grime and dubstep.

The hardcore continuum is a way of understanding that evolution of music because they’re all kind of similar in a 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 really gotten, at least initially, a lot of mainstream media coverage.

What’s interesting about them in a way is that they’re musical genres but at the same time they come with their own media. With grime just now, they come with their own DVD and mixtape culture as well.

Nick Dwyer

When you talk about this continuum of hardcore and what have you, obviously any kind of dance or bass gig you’ve got a vibe but there’s always been an electric vibe with hardcore and with jungle. Are you finding that same kind of electric vibe, same as what’s happening at nights, the AWOL kind of thing in the mid-’90s, the jungle gigs. Are you finding them at the dubstep nights now?

Kode9

I suppose more so now. Dubstep started as a 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 played to lots of tiny crowds in my time. It’s only in the last year or two that it’s really started picking up. The dance floors are full, the vibe is much better and it’s spreading.

Nick Dwyer

We’ll go a bit further into that in a second, but just to kind of 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’s Glasgow all about?

Kode9

It’s pretty industrial, kind of friendly place.

Nick Dwyer

Musically was it a very inspiring place?

Kode9

Musically not particularly, not for me. It rained a lot. That can be quite inspiring I suppose. I don’t have a lot of Scottish musical influences, no.

Nick Dwyer

When you talk about being fed pirate radio tapes, what were the shows and in particular who were the DJs that when the tape turned up in the mail, you can’t wait to get it out and play it?

Kode9

I used to get lots of tapes of, I think it’s Rude FM from east London. I can’t remember specific DJs but I used to, when I was living outside London in about ’95 I used to come down religiously every Sunday to go to Metalheadz. That’s I suppose, that period ’94 to ’97 when there was reggae jungle right through to the Metalheadz type stuff. It all existed. It didn’t necessarily get played in the same clubs but you could buy it all and you could mix it all, and that was kind of exciting for me because it was the first time I’d experienced a kind of music which potentially integrated every kind of music I’d ever heard on one speed or one kind of set of rhythms.

Nick Dwyer

When you go back to the first traces of this thing known as dubstep, a lot of people reference El B. El B and Steve Gurley, they were checking out Headz and more that Digital, Photek, moody vibe, would you say it played a bit of influence, large influence on those guys?

Kode9

Steve Gurley used to be in Foul Play, so it was direct jungle linkages. I think definitely the early dubstep stuff was coming out of the Metalheadz related side of drum & bass. A lot of people in dubstep now, everyone went through that jungle thing at various stages. A lot of people in this scene were maybe between ten and 15, but one way or another, they were listening to tapes at school or whatever, one way or another that’s in their blood or it’s in their genes.

Nick Dwyer

It’s interesting to know in the middle of the ’90s especially in the UK that whole jungle explosion took, for so many people growing up it was all consuming, and for a lot of people, they got to a point where they were fed up with this whole genre. At what point in time were you just so deep into this music and then were just like, “What’s happened here?”

Kode9

With jungle and drum & bass I was so immersed in it as a listener. Music, like any drug, it stops working at some point. For me it stopped working when I started realizing that without realizing it I was buying the same records and 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. Then I started hearing some of the early 2-step stuff, stuff with big basslines, and the reggae track.

Nick Dwyer

The rip groove kind of?

Kode9

I wasn’t really in to the speed garage thing. I’ve never been a huge fan of 4/4 music so when the speed garage thing started to rhythmically break up and become a little more intricate and jungle-influenced and not just in the basslines but in the rhythms, kind of the early Dem 2 stuff.

Nick Dwyer

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?

Kode9

I don’t have any. Jungle’s my biggest influence and I haven’t got any.

Nick Dwyer

Have you got any early 2-step stuff there? I’m putting you a bit on the spot here.

Kode9

I could play an early Horsepower. [gets up to get a record] So this would have been about 2000... Oh, here we go. Here’s an El-B thing. This would be about 2000.

Nick Dwyer

Should it be noted that dubstep DJs, they don’t have that fervent thing that jungle DJs had of all your tunes must be only a week old, at the latest.

Kode9

Oh, we’ve got that. Yeah, it’s a very quite intense dubplate culture. It’s inherited that, I think. This a tune called “Buck ‘n Bury.”

El-B - Buck 'n Bury (feat. Juiceman)

(music: El-B – “Buck ‘n Bury” / applause)

Nick Dwyer

So again, that is Horsepower Productions.

Kode9

No. That’s El-B.

Nick Dwyer

El-B. Sorry. “Buck ‘n Bury” is the name of the track. So obviously you’d spend a bit of time commuting from Glasgow to London to go to parties and what have you, but 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, or?

Kode9

It’s pretty intense. Yeah, 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. People like Lemon D and Dillinja, American hip hop producers like EL-P, German electronic dub producers like Jan Jelinek, and then all the early dubstep producers, El-B, Horsepower, but also people in UK garage at the time, there’s Dynamite, and we kind of followed that through right up to Dizzee Rascal, Wiley. And later, 2003 or 4, and then when we started the label in 2004, I didn’t have any time, so I kind of trashed the website.

Nick Dwyer

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

Kode9

Yeah, because I think it was kind of unique in this way it brought all those 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 interview, but in quite in-depth interviews. So it provided a bit of background that didn’t exist in other media platforms at that point.

Nick Dwyer

And also to a certain degree, did it help you with not... I wouldn’t say gaining acceptance, but all of a sudden, it’s this like, you’re meeting all these guys, and hanging out with them, and then realize, “Right, this guy’s on the level.” So it wasn’t such a close-knit thing anymore.

Kode9

Yeah, it was tiny at that point, so it 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. And then pretty quickly I started doing pirate radio on Rinse FM in east London, and when I started, I was doing the show after Roll Deep on a Tuesday night, and it’s kind of weird, because they don’t usually have Scottish people on east London pirate radio. So I didn’t talk for the first few months. I just used to bring lots of jingles, but yeah, that’s how it kind of happened.

Nick Dwyer

With your bit of a focal point, as well, for the music, there was a record store called Big Apple in Croydon. Tell us about this place.

Kode9

Yeah, Croydon is, I suppose, the home of dubstep. Croydon is, for people that don’t know it, like a small city right at 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’s a record shop in Croydon called Big Apple staffed by one of the main 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 and Skream, who are big producers in dubstep just now, but at the time were like 14, 15, 16. I suppose latterly, probably the core dubstep scene now revolves around a night called DMZ, and these producers called Digital Mystikz, Loefah, and Skream in there, again, from that area of South London that’s quite near, or just north of, Croydon.

Nick Dwyer

At what point did, with grime and dubstep, did they start noticeably branching off, and when did this word dubstep first start making an appearance?

Kode9

Well 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 they’re kind of two separate scenes now, but there’s 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. I’m more from dubstep, but dabble in a bit of grime now and then.

Nick Dwyer

It seems like a bit of a regional thing, as well, like grime is…

Kode9

It’s just south beneath London. I tend to think people from London can be very infatuated by the local area, and as an alien to London, as an outsider, I’ve kind of had a slightly different perspective. So I’m not too fussed about playing stuff from east London and south London because it’s like four miles away. It’s not a big deal for me.

Nick Dwyer

You mentioned it before, and it’s been said many times over the years about the role of pirate radio, and it plays, but just to give people an idea, just how important has pirate radio been in getting dubstep out there, and in particular with this end of the ’nuum, if you will?

Kode9

Literally, the way it has worked in the last year or so, is that there’s 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’s gone out live to the local area, and there’s a web site called barefiles.com, which is this huge archive of grime and dubstep radio shows, and that kind of connection between the local pirate radio station and a web archive of all the mixes has kind of been quite an amazing fuel-injection to how the music is spread.

Nick Dwyer

How about internationally as well? I mean, a lot of people via that web site in particular.

Kode9

Yeah, definitely.

Nick Dwyer

Right. When you talked about it before with the DMZ thing, and every scene historically has an epicenter, be it like Paradise Garage, be it Blue, be it Co-Op, you know what’s happened with the broken beat thing, but there’s another called FWD>>, and that played a very vital role in the rise of dubstep.

Kode9

Yeah, that was the original dark garage night, in a way, from about 2001. It was every two weeks on a Thursday. Started on a Sunday night at the Velvet Rooms on Charing Cross Road, then it moved to Plastic People in Shoreditch in east London, which is really... It’s a tiny, little club, but it’s got an amazing sound system.

I think the thing about dubstep is you’ve kind of been spoiled with sound systems. We’ve got both Plastic People where FWD>> is now every Friday night, and DMZ, the sound system which is at Mass in Brixton. Sound systems are just as you’d want them to be for bass music. In other words, they’re not just clear sound systems. They’re very physical experiences. Everything is vibrating. Things are sliding across surfaces. The whole place is vibrating, and that’s... Dubstep doesn’t really work unless everything is shaking.

Nick Dwyer

What’s the vibe like at the Digital Mystikz night and this is it… From what I’m told, it’s like, you’ve pretty much got no lighting in there. It’s just dark and it’s just...

Kode9

We’re not really into lighting. We’re into dark rooms and everything vibrating. It’s very stripped down and minimal and simple like that. It’s about the sound.

Nick Dwyer

Whereas the grime thing has, to a certain degree, to be very much about the MCs like you mentioned before, dubstep has not so much... Do you find MCs at these nights at FWD>> or...

Kode9

Yeah, I mean, FWD>> has always had a mixture of grime and dubstep. Sometimes if you’re lucky, you’ll hear grime MC on dubstep, and vice versa. The MCs in dubstep... Kind of just keeping you company with the music, alongside the music. At the same time, the stuff that I do is bit strange for dubstep because I work with a vocalist called Spaceape.

Nick Dwyer

How long have you been with him for?

Kode9

Since 2003.

Nick Dwyer

Right.

Kode9

The first release that we did is kind of weird.

Nick Dwyer

Let me listen to it.

Kode9

Yeah, it was a cover of Prince’s “Sign of the Times,” and let me take it out [gets up to grab record].

Nick Dwyer

You got a nice play on words with him.

Kode9

The tune is called “Sine of the Dub” and it hasn’t gotten any beats in it at all. I think I’ve got it. Actually, it’s on the laptop. This is kind of, it’s just bass and effects and vocals. The vocal is more in a kind of dub poetry style.

Kode9 & The Spaceape - Sine

(music: Kode9 & the Spaceape – “Sine of the Dub” / applause)

Nick Dwyer

How abouts did you meet Spaceape?

Kode9

He was just an old friend of mine, so that was the first track we did together. It was a quick thing, like half an hour. He’d never done any vocals before, so I was like, “How do you get him to do vocals quickly, somewhere to start? What’s your favorite track? Go get the record. You’ve 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,” put his voice down a bit. That’s that.

Nick Dwyer

What was the initial reaction to the tune? People were a bit…

Kode9

It doesn’t really fit in anywhere.

Nick Dwyer

Obviously the tempo was fine to play in sets but…

Kode9

It wasn’t deliberately like this but people kinda heard it as some kind of connection to Berlin dub people like Rhythm & Sound, and also that time, 2003 and grime, there was a thing called the Devil Mix. People like Wiley were making these tracks that were just bass with no beats in them at all. The MCs would spit over. Some people made connections to Berlin dub, some people thought it was some connection to these Devil Mixes in grime. Just random, really.

Nick Dwyer

Obviously someone else who came through a little bit later, but ended up on your label whose... Seems like there’s an obvious connection there ... It’s Burial. Tell us a little about Burial.

Kode9

Burial was like a guy who kind of had gotten into contact with me when I started the web magazine because he was really into that side of UK garage. He’d been sending me tunes for about five or six years, four or five years. I put a 12” of his last year... We just pressed out 500 and we sold out quite quickly, so that was cool. He kept sending me stuff, so it was like, clearly this man should put out an album, and so we put out the album right around May. For that kind of music, it’s been quite staggering feedback that we’ve had about it and how well it’s sold. It doesn’t really fit in anywhere. It’s definitely tangent from what dubstep is. It sounds kind of vaguely reminiscent from Berlin. A lot of UK guys think it’s quite dark and melancholy.

Nick Dwyer

One thing you kind of touched on before is with the whole thing... A lack of so much of MCs being more hosts at dubstep nights, I think one of the bigger problems with drum & bass especially was with MC 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 revolve more around a heavy impact drop than actually just constructing a tune. Do you agree that something has possibly happened with grime and that there’s a correlation between MCs and that kind of style?

Kode9

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 Everybody’s got their own theory about, if anything what went wrong with jungle and drum & bass, there’s 50 different theories around. My thing is it didn’t do anything for me anymore... My issue wasn’t MCs... A certain side of it took over. A side that was very loud and noisy, aggressive, and rhythmically really stupid... Really simple, boring ... And when you consider where jungle came from, it was the most rhythmically exciting music I’d heard in my life. That it could end up like that. It’s just.. So weird.

Nick Dwyer

Fo so long, so many producers have talked about the fact that maybe... Fabio touched on it yesterday in his lecture, when the music is 175 BPMs, there’s not much space to breathe. If the music was slowed down and you had a little bit more space to breathe it could inject so much into your life. Do you think dubstep, to a certain degree, offers that as a bit of a solution to that?

Kode9

I think it’s definitely a counterbalance to where drum & bass went, faster and faster towards gabber. Just by not only being around 140 BPM but also being, a lot of stuff now is half-step, so it actually goes even slower than that. It definitely has drawn a lot of people away from drum & bass, and it definitely is kind of a counterbalance with the way drum & 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 gonna do stuff at 150. I think it’s like the peer pressure of the dancefloor and what drugged-up ravers crave, demanding, is so overwhelming a pressure for these guys who are earning a living from it that I haven’t heard many people that have tried to slow it down really.

Nick Dwyer

If anything, it’s getting even faster. Another thing that’s kind of interesting is there’s always been this... With sub genres all of a sudden getting split off into micro genres... You said this half-step thing there... You’re starting to see even with dubstep this new little side genres popping up. What exactly is half-step, and do you have an example of that?

Kode9

For me, dubstep is lots of different rhythmic styles. I think half-step is one of the simplest styles. It’s got lots of space in the mix, which, for me, is perfect. It sounds a little bit like instrumental grime. The production values are different. The sub basses are much stronger. It feels quite slow. I’ll play you a track I did with Spaceape. It’s kind of a half-step thing. The thing with half-step is the bass that drives the music along, as opposed to the drums because the drums are quite spaced. This is a track called “Backward” from earlier this year.

Kode9 &The Spaceape - Backward

(music: Kode9 & the Spaceape – “Backward” / applause)

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

Nick Dwyer

They’re not actually dancing on the half, they’re more…

Kode9

No, it’s almost like it’s imagining that it’s fast music. They’re adding in the double time.

Nick Dwyer

Kind of, like, the same thing with people who are doing with jungle to a certain degree…

Kode9

The opposite of what they were doing with jungle. With jungle, yeah, the slow dub, reggae bass lines and your double time breaks. Here, it’s almost like the dubstep, the double time breaks have been subtracted so it’s actually quite sparse and almost sluggish but people, people dance double time to it, people that are really locked into it, anyway. There’s a lot of lazy skanking going on but people that are properly locked are dancing double time. It’s, kind of, weird to watch because it’s quite slow music.

Nick Dwyer

Yeah, right. I mean, are there many other producers doing half step at the moment?

Kode9

Yeah, the, probably, the best half-step producer, in a way, the like, the proto-typical half-step sound is a guy called Loefah. He’s just got huge brick walls of bass and very, very sparse minimal rhythms.

Nick Dwyer

You know, 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, there was so much coming out, was the fact that all these young kids had easy access to very basic software, like FruityLoops and what have you. I mean, for example, what would your production set up look like? Is there still a lot of people producing on Fruity?

Kode9

Yeah, I think a lot of the kids are still, 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 that he gets out of Fruity is amazing. I used to use Fruity years ago but I’ve been producing for ages so I use, I pretty much use anything but, standardly, Reason and Logic. I don’t think it really matter what software you use. I mean, Skream in particular is, kind of, the best example of why it doesn’t really matter. If you can get what he gets out of FruityLoops then that’s cool.

Nick Dwyer

Obviously, it’s very bass heavy music. I mean, are a good set of monitors an essential part of your kit?

Kode9

Yeah, that’s, kind of, standard. I mean, 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 sound system, 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 and, you know, they describe, a place called Transition, and they describe what they do as “bass management” because, often, they’re just having to mold the bass, like, hold it back a little bit, or bring it out, or just control it a little bit so it works, it works on a big system effectively. They’ve been cutting dub and reggae for ages and jungle. Now, they’re doing most of the dubstep stuff.

Nick Dwyer

That’s, kind of, interesting to know, you know, with what’s happening now with the technology that’s available, and pretty much every other genre of music everyone has gone the direction of your Serato and drum & bass DJs were pretty much, the last bastion to a certain degree of dubplate culture, yet it seems that that whole culture is so alive and well in dubstep.

Kode9

It is. I mean, it’s very strong in dubstep. I’m certainly not anti-digital stuff but, you know, I prefer the sound of vinyl. 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 you, 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’re all getting mastered at an early, they try to get it mastered at an early stage before they come out so that immediately creates a level playing field. When you hear the stuff out, you can compare it to what other producers are doing because it’s all gone through the same mastering process.

The thing that’s been quite useful for people trying to build their sound up, building from nothing, really, like, inventing what is a new variant of this hardcore continuum that we’ve talked about.

Nick Dwyer

I mean, you know, for drum & bass, there was Music House, where is the spot for dubstep?

Kode9

Transition. It’s in Forest Hill in south London.

Nick Dwyer

I mean but what about the cost side of things? I mean, obviously, cutting plates is you know, economically, it can stack up on you.

Kode9

Yeah, I mean, everyone is in it for the love. It’s 30 pounds to cut a 10” dubplate, two tracks. Fifty pounds for a 12”. Yeah, there’s some real maniacal dubplate cutters who are just, like, 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 sounds. That’s, kind of, that’s the way things work.

Nick Dwyer

Say, for example, someone got booked to play at FWD>> and they turned up with a CD wallet, they probably…

Kode9

No, people do play with CDs. But especially on a sound system like Plastic People, which is such a beautiful sound system. The sound is so clean and the room is cool. You really, like, 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, you know, maybe that’s one of the downsides of people doing stuff on Fruity and then going straight to CD without any mastering in between.

Nick Dwyer

I mean, you’re also getting this element of, kind of, VIP culture, as well, where you’ll do special one offs for, maybe, yourself or for close friends, or DJs?

Kode9

Yeah, to a certain extent. I mean, when you can cut a dubplate, make a tune and cut a dubplate in one day, then, you know, people do all kinds of little different versions for different occasions but there’s not a lot of money in the scene so it’s not as if everybody is doing specials. People are general quite happy to just cut their tunes.

Nick Dwyer

Going back to your own, you know, your own productions, I mean, how does the process work for you? I mean, do you start with just some beats, or you, kind of, work around a sample, or…

Kode9

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

Nick Dwyer

On average, how long would you spend on a tune?

Kode9

The 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. Some tunes take weeks. Again, there’s no, kind of, set rule.

Nick Dwyer

I mean, in recent times, you’ve been working on finishing your album. Tell us a bit about the album.

Kode9

Yeah, the album is called Memories of the Future and it should be out in a couple of weeks. It includes four or five of the early Hyperdub releases and lots of new stuff. It’s all myself with Spaceape. 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. I think I’m a bit twisted like that.

Nick Dwyer

I mean, have you got that video here?

Kode9

I’ve got, no I don’t.

Nick Dwyer

You don’t have the video?

Kode9

No.

Nick Dwyer

Okay.

Kode9

It’s a video for one the tracks that’s on the album a couple of art students made for us, which is on my MySpace, if anyone wants to watch it. It, kind of, sum up, the video sums up quite well what we’re getting at.

Nick Dwyer

Shall we have a listen to something off the album?

Kode9

Yeah. This is the first track off the album, it’s called, “Glass.”

Kode9 & the Spaceape - Glass

(music: Kode9 & the Spaceape – “Glass” / applause)

NICK DWYER

In terms of vocalists, is it just Spaceape that you’re working with… have you in the past, or have you any plans to work with other vocalists?

KODE9

I’ve released a track with a female Jamaican vocalist called Warrior Queen. I’m doing a track for her album as well.

NICK DWYER

She did a track with The Bug for…

KODE9

Yeah, the track that I released was The Bug and Warrior Queen.

NICK DWYER

Tell us a bit about the label Hyperdub. It’s been going for how long now?

KODE9

Three years.

NICK DWYER

Three years. And when you first set it up, was it essentially… I mean did you see it as a label for your own productions?

KODE9

Yeah, it was specifically for our productions which I knew were slightly weird and were and not necessarily going to fit in on other labels, so we didn’t really have a plan just to have an avenue for releasing our own stuff. Then, as kind of naturally happens, you hear other people’s stuff that is a bit weird as well, and you think, “That could take it in an interesting direction.” We released The Bug and Warrior Queen thing. We released the Burial stuff. It’s still there mainly for me to do what I want in terms of production, and have an avenue to put it out without having to persuade someone to like it.

NICK DWYER

Something else that is quite interesting, that we’re talking about yesterday… talk to anyone that runs a label these days, and the news isn’t that good. Funnily enough, your sales are going up rather than going down in recent times.

KODE9

Yeah, it’s not a big label at all, but it’s going in the right direction, and even the vinyl sales are going up which is cool in this day and age. Vinyl sales are going up, CD sales are great. For some reason, I think vinyl is experiencing a little bit of a resurgence. A lot of people are suffering, one way or another, but if you’re a tiny label and you’re just starting out, and you’re building it like that, I think your aspirations are a lot more realistic than perhaps labels that have been around for a long time who’ve experienced vinyl in a different period of its lifespan and therefore are practically suicidal now, because what has happened to vinyl sales because of digital stuff.

NICK DWYER

Do you think there’s some kind of parallel maybe between the fact you’re talking about how there’s a lot of support for vinyl and dubplate culture within dubstep and young people going to gigs and actually seeing you guys playing off plates rather than Serato or CDs. You’re keeping that whole vibe alive. Do you think that’s true to a certain degree, maybe?

KODE9

Maybe. I think the way scenes grow there’s a lot of cloning that goes on. In other words, people come to hear the music for the first time, they see what the core of the scene are doing and then they just copy it. They copy the sound, they copy the mannerisms, they copy the fact they’re using dubplates, and that’s how scenes grow. That’s just the way music works. That’s the way everything works, one way or another. The way something grows from small to being big must involve an element of copying. So, yeah, I think it does have an impact that we’re all crazed dubplate fetishists.

NICK DWYER

Are you starting to see… there are scenes that have emerged outside of London, outside of the UK? How about production? Are you seeing much production coming from far corners of the globe?

KODE9

Yeah, there’s good little scenes in Berlin and New York. I played in Brazil and the next few months I’m supposed to be in Russia and China and Japan and so on. In terms of production, for me, still the best stuff comes from South London, but I’ve heard amazing tracks from Holland recently. There’s good stuff coming from Germany and the US. There’s some people in Brazil making stuff. Sometimes, you’d like it to be less a copying thing and for people to bring some of the local flavor of their local music scenes to the music, but maybe that takes a bit of time.

NICK DWYER

You’re heading out to Russia pretty soon as well.

KODE9

I don’t know what the local music scene would be in Russia.

NICK DWYER

Something else I’ve noted with you is, of course, you're not only a well-respected producer but also a very well-respected writer. You’ve been writing a book for a little while now. You’re halfway through it. Tell us about this. It sounds very interesting.

KODE9

The book is about the uses and abuses of sound systems. The book’s called Sonic Warfare, and it ranges from everything from MCs clashing or soundclashes to using sound systems in this kind of competitive, conflictual situation or using your vocal cords in that respect right through to US military research into acoustic weaponry in Iraq just now – really, that full spectrum of people using and abusing sound systems, people using sound to control or manipulate. I write a fair bit of stuff about sonic branding [and] these things called “earworms”. Earworms being basically catchy tunes that get stuck in your head and the more you try to get them out your head the more they stick. I think we’re all… I think musicians know a lot about earworms.

It’s kind of weird, a lot of the military research is like science-fiction, basically. You can’t quite believe that they’re attempting to do what they’re trying to do with sound. There’s a commercially available device in the UK called The Mosquito. I don’t know if anyone’s heard of it.

You can basically buy this device and shopkeepers are buying it for example and they just fit it outside their shop and it’s basically targeted at 15- to 25-year-olds, and it’s based on this principle, which is kind of a joke. It sounds like a joke. It sounds like science fiction. It’s based on this principle that as you get older, you lose the higher frequencies in your hearing and so this device emits ... I mean they use these devices apparently to get rid of rats and mice. They use these devices on groups of youths who are very sensitive to this frequency range between 15 and 20,000Hz, the upper end of the audible frequency, spectrum. It’s supposed to be so annoying for them that they have to go away, they have to disperse. In a lot of these cases, it’s about using sound either very high-volume sound or very high-frequency sound or very low-frequency sound to make people feel uneasy and usually to disperse crowds.

I don’t really know if… it doesn’t sound that realistic to me, but I’ve got a little test to try out. Basically, on one of the websites about this device, the Mosquito, it’s got all these test tones from just over 20,000Hz right down to 10,000 for you to gauge your own hearing and see ... My hearing’s a bit fucked, so I don’t have a lot of high-frequency… I can’t hear a lot of high frequencies, but I’ll play some of these tones and see what people can hear because the science behind it says that as you get older, you lose the higher frequencies. Therefore, these devices don’t affect middle-aged people; they affect kids, and the press-release images that are on this website for this commercial device are all of the kids with hooded tops on smoking cigarettes. I’ll just play some of these frequencies and see what people can hear. I don’t expect many people to hear this unless there’s some closet dogs in here.

This is 22,000Hz [plays 22,000Hz]. No. Anyone hear that? This is 19. [plays 19,000Hz] You’re all too old. 18. [plays 18,000Hz] You heard that? I couldn’t hear that. 16. [plays 16,000Hz] I could hear that one. It goes on like that but that’s the principle in which this device is supposed to work. As I said it’s kind of science-fictional and it kind of makes you think you lose contact with the line between science-fiction and reality when these devices are being marketed.

NICK DWYER

How long have you been researching the book for?

KODE9

Oh, quite a long time. It’s just something I’ve been squeezing in to a kind of busy schedule for the last few years. Hopefully, I’ll get it finished in the next few months.

NICK DWYER

Being a producer and going through the whole process of trying to get a record released is one thing, but trying to get a book published is another. You’re not looking forward to that part of things…

KODE9

Yeah, I set up a record label to cut out the middleman bit of the music industry, but I’m not going to set up my own publishing company. That would be long.

NICK DWYER

Another couple of things… terms that I’ve heard, that you’ve coined or used… this whole thing about “ecology of fear.” Can you explain that? Also, “bass materialism,” which sounds pretty interesting. Do you want to explain that a little bit?

KODE9

Very simply, the bass materialism thing is because the book is quite theoretical and bass materialism is kind of like… OK, there’s 2,000 years of western philosophy and whenever it engages with music one way or another, it’s kind of classical music or art music. Bass materialism is like dropping a bass bomb on top of western philosophy and seeing what happens. That’s what that is. What was the other thing?

NICK DWYER

Ecology of fear.

KODE9

Ecology of fear is basically the background to what the book is about, which is particularly post-9/11 when fear is such a dominant mechanism of how politics is working globally. It’s just looking into an aspect of that via the way that we’ve used sound over the last, whatever, 50 years to produce fear. Obviously, horror films are classic example these kind of shrill sounds. Also, something that comes from dub and reggae culture – the relationship between dread and bass culture. That’s kind of what these things are about.

NICK DWYER

Yeah, right. Does anyone have any questions at the moment?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Sorry, I forgot. Yeah, just to back the story up on your Sonic Warfare bit there and what you can do to animals with it. There was a massive rat problem in the original Can studio, which was the one where they recorded Tago Mago, “Vitamin C” and all that kind of stuff in like the early ’70s and Holger Czukay went to get rid of the mice and rats and turn on one of the oscillators on a really high frequency, and two days later, all the animals were gone. And the whole problem was, about four or five days later, the group went through this massive outrage and had one of the biggest arguments, and the group had to almost split up… until someone came to the conclusion that the machine was still going and once they switched it off it became a happy working place again.

KODE9

Yeah, it’s the kind of thing that you get a lot of conspiracy theories about if you search on the net for stuff about acoustic weaponry, you’ll hear all these stories about science labs in the ’60s and ’70s where suddenly everybody started feeling ill or nauseous in the lab and nobody could work out why, and then they realized that one of the ventilator fans was emitting these infra-sound, infrasonic frequencies these really low frequencies. It was basically connecting because different parts of the body have different resonant frequencies. Your eyeballs will vibrate at a certain frequency and it will seem like you’re having hallucinations, but it’s basically your eyeballs vibrating and so you get... On your vision like 18Hz or something like that.

There’s loads of stories of people having these unexplainable nausea feelings, but the thing is, when you look at the stuff online, there’s a lot of conspiracy theory that surrounds it, so it’s quite difficult to separate the reality from the bullshit. Obviously, anyone that’s interested in bassy music has heard stuff about “brown notes”. There’s certain low frequencies that allegedly are supposed to make you run to the toilet.

NICK DWYER

Are there some other questions?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

For example, in France in Paris, quite no one knows about dubstep but we are so close from London. How do you explain the fact that, for example, this scene like UK garage or grime doesn’t touch a country or a town like Paris?

KODE9

I don’t know, I mean, I’ve played in Paris a few times and there were some people there. I think… you tell me. I think the French are quite protectionist over there [about] what comes in culturally to their country. I could only really compare it to places like Germany that are usually quite open to music that comes from London.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yeah, for example, drum & bass or UK hip-hop like Roots Manuva or Ninja Tune or Big Dada.

KODE9

I think it’s still that even though the music’s about six years old, it’s still in some strange way quite young. It’s six years old, but actually, it’s like a year-and-a-half old because it’s gone through a number of changes recently that made it maybe more accessible or more visible. I can’t explain the Paris thing. I’ve played there a couple times and it’s been OK.

NICK DWYER

Any questions?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

What’s your favorite reggae track?

KODE9

Two. I’ve got two favorite reggae tracks.

NICK DWYER

Play both them.

KODE9

I’ll play both of them. This is from the mid-’70s. It’s called “King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown,” and it’s the dub of… it’s King Tubby, Augustus Pablo and it’s a dub of a Jacob Miller tune.

King Tubby and Augustus Pablo – “King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown”

(music: King Tubby and Augustus Pablo – “King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown”)

Augustus Pablo and the melodica. I can’t get enough of that. My other favorite kind of reggae-related tune comes from the ’80s and it’s actually one of the first digital dancehall tracks… I think this tune has got a big influence on dubstep just now.

Wayne Smith – “Under Me Sleng Teng”

(music: Wayne Smith – “Under Me Sleng Teng”)

NICK DWYER

Aside from the reggae side of things, what else do you listen to? How about the whole Adrian Sherwood and On-U Sound, because if you listen to people like the Digital Mystikz and stuff, there seems to be a definite kind of influence there.

KODE9

Yep, you know I like Adrian Sherwood's stuff, but I don’t know a lot of it, I like African Head Charge as well, but it’s not a big influence on what we’re doing. I can hear retrospectively the connections, but the stuff… apart from jungle, the stuff influenced by is from everywhere, really. I’m not a dub reggae purist at all, so I kind of draw from everywhere, and my stuff ends up in all different directions.

NICK DWYER

Before we go, should we have one more of your tunes? Have you got something new and fresh? Are you also finding with the scene, one of the biggest problems with jungle, with dubplate culture, was tunes getting held up on dub for far, far, far too long? Is a similar thing happening with dubstep, or is there a bit of a quicker turnaround?

KODE9

It’s getting faster, but I think, to be quite honest with you, we’re not in any rush. What’s the rush? It’s getting faster, but everyone’s pretty long. A lot of people who’ve come out of nowhere are like, “Oh, dubstep’s getting some press. We better start a dubstep label and do this and do that.” I’ve been interested in this music and its various shapes and forms for ages, and it will go on and become something else more interesting after dubstep, so I’m in no rush.

You want one of mine or some other…

NICK DWYER

Yeah. How about… I’ll tell you what… how about something off the Burial album?

KODE9

I’d rather play some Wu-Tang. How much time have I got?

NICK DWYER

About two or three.

KODE9

Wu-Tang, anyone?

NICK DWYER

What was the Wu-Tang track you wanted to play anyway?

KODE9

I really like the film Ghost Dog and I really like RZA. This is a quick track. I’ve got to play it. I’m not having it.

Wu-Tang Clan – “Fast Shadow”

(music: Wu-Tang Clan – “Fast Shadow”)

NICK DWYER

I was going to say, if you look at your releases, ones you’ve put up on the platter… they're 10"… any particular reason why you released… do you release the bulk of your material on 10"?

KODE9

What do you mean the bulky?

NICK DWYER

The bulk of it.

KODE9

I release my own stuff on 10". I don’t really know why. I like 10"s. I mostly got 10" dubplates so it’s just a habit. I don’t think the sound is as good on 10", but whatever.

NICK DWYER

This track is called?

KODE9

This track’s called “Nine Samurai,” and it came out earlier this year. It’s the track that this video that we were talking about was made for. It’s got a big sample from the Japanese film [Seven Samurai], the Kurosawa film, which is what the classic example of one of these tunes that kind of unconsciously just got into my head and that I noticed I was humming it for the next month, and then I realized it and then I had to go sample it and so on.

Kode9 – “Nine Samurai”

(music: Kode9 – “Nine Samurai” / applause)

NICK DWYER

Thank you very much for taking time to have a chat, man. You’re going to be hanging around the Academy for the next couple days?

KODE9

Yeah, I’m doing a gig at Crofton Street tomorrow night. I’m around. I’m working on a track with [inaudible], and I’m around.

NICK DWYER

You’re a very friendly man, so if anyone has any questions or anything just come and say hi.

KODE9

Yeah.

NICK DWYER

Once again, thank you very much, man.

[Applause]

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