I recently did a Little Nobody track in which I had the eerie feeling I was channeling vintage Underground Resistance or Suburban Knight, but with about 1% of the talent of those people – and even that’s claiming some unwarranted kudos. It was around 4:00am and I was chronically sleep-deprived at the time I finished hacking the beast together.
I somewhat pretentiously called the track ‘Compulsion’, more likely because of the vast amounts of chocolate and strong coffee consumed during the process than any twee philosophical intention. Luke’s Anger remix is a brilliantly cut-up, eclectic, funked-up, appropriately glitchy interpretation.
“I had a bash at it and it all flowed really nicely!” he told me after finishing the mix last month. “Pretty happy with it; whaddya reckon?!” The remix was subsequently dropped at the next Luke’s Anger gig, at the Bloc Festival in March.
“5,000 ravers going mental – in a very traditional English holiday park – was very surreal, but lots of fun!” I was chuffed to hear straight after.
“I opened my set with the remix and got lots of cheers and shit, was a good set to play as all the other arenas had closed, so it was at capacity with a massive queue to get in at 6:30am.”
It goes without saying that I was an out-of-order fan of Luke’s Anger before requesting the mix; the guy seriously blows my brains out in ways I’m still coming to grips with, and that’s exactly how I like my tunes. Hyperactive, quirky, kinky electronica that defies gravity, yet still – somehow – retains the funk. A wee bit like what Neil Landstrumm and Jamie Lidell were doing on Peacefrog and Mosquito 14 years ago, but more gung-ho 2009. If that makes any sense at all.
So, as is my usual selfish bent, when we talked remixes, I also brought up interviews, and fired off a swag of queries. I thought it best here to leave these babies as a simple Q+A.
Where in the UK are you from?
“Norwich, famous for its vibrant Colman’s Mustard scene!”
How did you get inspired to start making music?
“Sometime in the late ’80s, me and my brother got an Amiga 500; I was amazed and intrigued at what he could do with tracker software like OctaMED and Protracker, so–me being the impressionable younger brother – I wanted a bash, too!”
Luke’s Anger is a spin on Luke Sanger, right? So… who dreamed it up, and when?
“”When spamming various record labels with CDs, I got a reply from Jerome Hill (Don’t Recordings), saying he dug the tunes and wanted to release them, etc. He misread my e-mail address scribbled on the CD as ‘luke’s anger’, so I thought, yeah, I’ll go with that…”
You’ve been producing music and interacting within the music industry for a relatively chunky period of time, right?–how long exactly, and what integral changes have you noticed over that period?
“Er, well, the first vinyl release was a track on Don’t Recordings in 2005, which I wrote in 2004… So, although I’d been writing tracks for a lot longer, that would be the first ‘Luke’s Anger’ release. I don’t really need to keep motivated as I write tracks to keep me sane! The only change I could note would be that it’s getting harder to shift vinyl; it’s a shame, ‘cos I’ve always been a vinyl junkie. I teach music tech at a college, and most of the younger students, age 16-18, don’t have the same attachment to records as I did when I was that age.”
What gear/software are you making most use of in the studio at the moment?
“Software-wise, I’ve been using Ableton since Version 1, and it always gets used, seems to be getting better all the time. My hardware is ever-changing, as I seem to buy and sell a bit more than I should, but the main players are: Minimoog, Elektron Machinedrum UW, Elektron Monomachine, and x0xbox–a homemade TB303.”
Which current crop of artists and labels are grabbing your attention?
“New stuff? Hmmm, on the techno tip Ben Pest and Paul Birken can do no wrong in my eyes. I saw Egyptian Lover at Bloc Festival last week, and he blasted my face off with just an 808 and a mic, but then he’s not very current, I suppose [laughter]. Got sent a promo from Tigerbass of an artist called Doshy, sounded a bit like jacked-up early Mr. Oizo, that was right up my alley, oo-er.”
What do you think of veteran British producers like Neil Landsrumm, Tobias Schmidt, Dave Tarrida, Cristian Vogel, Subhead, Tubejerk and Si Begg?
“I love all of those producers and have bought and played records by all of them, especially Subhead and Si Begg. Was a very sad day when Phil (of Subhead) passed away.”
If you were pressed into a corner and forced to confess under great duress, how would you define the sounds/styles you’re currently making?
“Spangfunk, probably. My mate called it ‘bashi bashi techno’…”
You’ve released stuff through Tigerbass and Don’t. What’s your relationship like with them?
“Both labels are great, Don’t is weird and wonderful, Tigerbass is straight-up club bangers, a win-win situation. Oh yeah, and they both release actual vinyl records!”
You also have your own brilliant label that personally I’m loving, Bonus Round. What’s happening in that department?
“Ha-ha, cheers, you must be one of the three people who bought the records! Got Bonusround005 nearly ready, it’s a track by me with remixes from Michael Forshaw, Paul Birken and Dzaxy, and it’s gonna rock! All the back-catalogue is available digitally now, and I’m considering starting up a digi-only bastard-offspring-ugly-cousin label to cater for the stuff that doesn’t fit into Bonus Round’s strict regime.”
What new Luke’s Anger releases can we look out for?
“A new Bonus Round EP, a split-12″ with the ever-awesome 3d!t on Kitty Corner, a remix for Håkan Lidbo on Tigerbass, and a remix for your good self, I do believe!”
CDs seem to be a disappearing facet of the electronic music industry, and a fair amount of people are cutting back on vinyl production these days because they say it just doesn’t make back the money invested. How do you feel about this?
“CDs are horrible nasty things; I fucking hate them, always have done. It’s a shame about vinyl, but like I said before, if the kids aint into it then I suppose it’s not gonna make profit anymore.”
Is vinyl dead?
“Not in my eyes. CD’s can die though, the little sods.”
Do DJs really need to continue to use vinyl? Or can they instead construct entire sets out of stuff they’ve downloaded off the Internet?
“I suppose not. I do love the feel of vinyl, and although Serato is the bollocks, you still need to stare at a laptop which takes a bit of the fun out it for me. I’m still amazed at what DJs (like Jerome Hill for instance) can do with two record players; maybe I’m easily pleased? Either way, if it’s rocking the party, then I won’t complain.”
Gotta ask, as I’m struggling to do it myself: How would you define the remix you’ve done of ‘Compulsion’ for me, in a nutshell?
“A tasty little roller.”
© By Andrez Bergen, 2009
