For some reason, I'm in a sharing mood. I live in a city/nation where what passes for the underground here, differs from what g'wan elsewhere in the world. So, we reached out to kode9, who I know some of you know, to provide us a mix for the radio show that I do here in Vancouver. The end result was the Babel mix that y'all have heard. But as part of the package, I got an interview out of it.
Here's the first half..the entire thing will be up on our website, Art Of Beatz later in the week.
---
AOB: Name, rank, serial number and brief history of
Kode 9 for those on this side of the pond who may not
be familiar.
kode9: I've been djing for about 15 years, set up the
hyperdub.com website in 2001, and about a year ago set
up the Hyperdub label. I used to help run
dubplate.net when it started back in 2001. In 2004 we
released two 10"s 'sign of the dub'/'stalker' and
'spit' on Hyperdub. In 2004, I also released
4 tracks on Rephlex's Grime 2 compilation. I've also
released on the label Tempa. I'm one of the residents
at grime/dubstep night Forward>> in London, and host a
weekly show (Thursday 7-9pm) on one of the city's
longest running pirate radio stations, Rinse FM.
AOB: You've a book in the works, do tell?
kode9: Yeah, I'm writing a book about the philosophy
of sound which deals with loads of things from audio
viruses to sonic weaponry to rhythmic futurism and so
on.
AOB: When do you expect the book to be finished? Is
there a specific angle to the philospiphy of the sound
behind the book?
kode9: When will it be finished? Don't know but it
certainly wouldnt come out for a couple of years I
think. I'm in the middle of it right now. . .i hope i
get out alive. Yeah, there are a few concepts that are
fundamental to what I'm doing: the main one is
'turbulence' from the physics of fluids and
metereology, i.e. how do vortexes emerge and what is
their rhythmic consistency. Philosophically, I'm
interested in what we call bass materialism, but thats
a long story. . .
AOB: Where do ideas on sonic warfare come into today's
music scene and especially into the grime sceen today?
Are the pirate stations a weapon in todays sonic war?
kode9: There are several legacies in understanding
sound as a weapon within music culture: one of them
goes back to industrial music in the 1980s and
experiments with infrasound at gigs. Another strand
which interests me more is the array of practices
which surround Jamaican sound system culture:
bass clashing, vocal clashing etc. etc. Transplanted
to London, and the major transmission channels are
pirate radio, and the clashing extends to
inter-radio rivalry and vocal clashing (merking) is
amplified and intensified. Its interesting to look at
the relations of force, the war games being played out
constantly between pirate and mainstream media
in London; so BBC 1extra is part of a strategy towards
pirate media - simultaneously an acknowledgement that
most of the exciting new music
comes out of the pirate networks first, but also some
of that energy being appropriated. These are two
models of media transmission which are always to
some extent in conflict due to their organisational
structures, financial (or lack of) backing and ability
to mutate quickly.
AOB: What's a bigger force then? 1Xtra (the mainstream
response) or the pirates?
Don't get me wrong. . I think 1extra is generally
quite a positive thing in relation to spreading uk
urban music overseas, as a trasmission vector.
However you do have to see it in context. Its a fuckin
digital channel here. . .you can get it through your
Tv if you have cable but you need a digital receiver
to get it properly in the UK on a radio (apart from
online) In the context of the bullshit pumped out
through BBC radio 1 (the national pop radio network
here), it just makes me angry. 1extra should be a
national analog channel and not limited. But if you
want to know about the future,
its all about the pirates.
AOB: Sound as a weapon. More of a passive concept
these days in the electronic music scene(i.e, my
dubplate can slay all you) or more of an active idea
than ever?
kode9: Yeah, I agree. . .but I think things are
changing with the general beligerent mood of the early
21st century. I'm interested in the full spectrum of
sonic warfare, which connects one mc insulting another
mc's
family, to dubplate or soundsystem wars, via
industrial's obsessions with infrasound, all the way
through to the use of sonic weaponry by the US Army
such as high frequency acoustic lasers in Iraq.
AOB: For you, where did the roots of the hyperdub
virus first come together?
kode9: For me, the term hyperdub is just another way
of describing a certain mutation of music which runs
through jungle, drum'n'bass, 2step, dubstep and grime
- its dub methodology on overdrive. . .
AOB: You've got mixes in an assortment of genres on
Hyperdub.com but you're known mainly for your
involvment in the grime/2-step/dubstep axis. What is
it about the music that drew you in?
kode9: Yeah. . .those mixes will probably get
vaporized by me soon in the new diet version of the
hyperdub website.
About 10 years ago I was a jungle addict. I loved the
way you could expect to hear literally any kind of
music or sound appear at any time on top off
fucked up asymmetric beats. So partly I'm getting a
deja vu thing now with the whole grime/dubstep axis,
because really that transects a pretty huge range of
sonic texture, voices, spaces, rhythms and so on. Its
like a music that (potentially) synthesizes every
music that you ever loved. Of course it
could just get in a rut. . .but for me as long as the
instrumental side of the music stays in touch with the
vocal side then things should stay lively. Thats
important, because for example, as a drum programmer,
you learn alot rhythmically from listening to mcs
flow. . .
Here's the first half..the entire thing will be up on our website, Art Of Beatz later in the week.
---
AOB: Name, rank, serial number and brief history of
Kode 9 for those on this side of the pond who may not
be familiar.
kode9: I've been djing for about 15 years, set up the
hyperdub.com website in 2001, and about a year ago set
up the Hyperdub label. I used to help run
dubplate.net when it started back in 2001. In 2004 we
released two 10"s 'sign of the dub'/'stalker' and
'spit' on Hyperdub. In 2004, I also released
4 tracks on Rephlex's Grime 2 compilation. I've also
released on the label Tempa. I'm one of the residents
at grime/dubstep night Forward>> in London, and host a
weekly show (Thursday 7-9pm) on one of the city's
longest running pirate radio stations, Rinse FM.
AOB: You've a book in the works, do tell?
kode9: Yeah, I'm writing a book about the philosophy
of sound which deals with loads of things from audio
viruses to sonic weaponry to rhythmic futurism and so
on.
AOB: When do you expect the book to be finished? Is
there a specific angle to the philospiphy of the sound
behind the book?
kode9: When will it be finished? Don't know but it
certainly wouldnt come out for a couple of years I
think. I'm in the middle of it right now. . .i hope i
get out alive. Yeah, there are a few concepts that are
fundamental to what I'm doing: the main one is
'turbulence' from the physics of fluids and
metereology, i.e. how do vortexes emerge and what is
their rhythmic consistency. Philosophically, I'm
interested in what we call bass materialism, but thats
a long story. . .
AOB: Where do ideas on sonic warfare come into today's
music scene and especially into the grime sceen today?
Are the pirate stations a weapon in todays sonic war?
kode9: There are several legacies in understanding
sound as a weapon within music culture: one of them
goes back to industrial music in the 1980s and
experiments with infrasound at gigs. Another strand
which interests me more is the array of practices
which surround Jamaican sound system culture:
bass clashing, vocal clashing etc. etc. Transplanted
to London, and the major transmission channels are
pirate radio, and the clashing extends to
inter-radio rivalry and vocal clashing (merking) is
amplified and intensified. Its interesting to look at
the relations of force, the war games being played out
constantly between pirate and mainstream media
in London; so BBC 1extra is part of a strategy towards
pirate media - simultaneously an acknowledgement that
most of the exciting new music
comes out of the pirate networks first, but also some
of that energy being appropriated. These are two
models of media transmission which are always to
some extent in conflict due to their organisational
structures, financial (or lack of) backing and ability
to mutate quickly.
AOB: What's a bigger force then? 1Xtra (the mainstream
response) or the pirates?
Don't get me wrong. . I think 1extra is generally
quite a positive thing in relation to spreading uk
urban music overseas, as a trasmission vector.
However you do have to see it in context. Its a fuckin
digital channel here. . .you can get it through your
Tv if you have cable but you need a digital receiver
to get it properly in the UK on a radio (apart from
online) In the context of the bullshit pumped out
through BBC radio 1 (the national pop radio network
here), it just makes me angry. 1extra should be a
national analog channel and not limited. But if you
want to know about the future,
its all about the pirates.
AOB: Sound as a weapon. More of a passive concept
these days in the electronic music scene(i.e, my
dubplate can slay all you) or more of an active idea
than ever?
kode9: Yeah, I agree. . .but I think things are
changing with the general beligerent mood of the early
21st century. I'm interested in the full spectrum of
sonic warfare, which connects one mc insulting another
mc's
family, to dubplate or soundsystem wars, via
industrial's obsessions with infrasound, all the way
through to the use of sonic weaponry by the US Army
such as high frequency acoustic lasers in Iraq.
AOB: For you, where did the roots of the hyperdub
virus first come together?
kode9: For me, the term hyperdub is just another way
of describing a certain mutation of music which runs
through jungle, drum'n'bass, 2step, dubstep and grime
- its dub methodology on overdrive. . .
AOB: You've got mixes in an assortment of genres on
Hyperdub.com but you're known mainly for your
involvment in the grime/2-step/dubstep axis. What is
it about the music that drew you in?
kode9: Yeah. . .those mixes will probably get
vaporized by me soon in the new diet version of the
hyperdub website.
About 10 years ago I was a jungle addict. I loved the
way you could expect to hear literally any kind of
music or sound appear at any time on top off
fucked up asymmetric beats. So partly I'm getting a
deja vu thing now with the whole grime/dubstep axis,
because really that transects a pretty huge range of
sonic texture, voices, spaces, rhythms and so on. Its
like a music that (potentially) synthesizes every
music that you ever loved. Of course it
could just get in a rut. . .but for me as long as the
instrumental side of the music stays in touch with the
vocal side then things should stay lively. Thats
important, because for example, as a drum programmer,
you learn alot rhythmically from listening to mcs
flow. . .
