The late 1990s saw the world of dub-style music mutating and dividing, with the emphasis on computerised, digitally-based music. Dubs and overdubs moved from the studio crew splicing tapes in the early hours of the morning to the ‘cut and paste’ technique made possible by the new technology. Although some pursue the art in its original form the majority of artists and producers out there put their faith in Cubase and similar editing tools. Changes in the nature of the UK's live music scene, and selective media coverage, meant that only a few of the midi-circus crew have received the recognition they deserve. One of that deserving bunch is Lee Digidub, for me one of the true innovators of the digital dub sound.

Lee’s outfit, ‘Digidub’, with its heart and roots in the UK underground music and party scene, is a prime example of the genre. I got to know Lee Digidub when we began promoting alternative music in the mid 1990s at Ohm Soundsystem’s live gigs and shows. Lee and his cyberdub mutants were a regular feature of the - then infant - Ohm Sounds with whom I began DJing. Several years along we are all still at it, keeping the faith and the B-line booming. I recently caught up with Lee and with the wondrous world of Digidub.

I began talking to Lee about the recent release ‘The Golems of Digidub’, an album which features original works by Lee and remixes by the Moody Boys and Mudskipper, to name but a few. ‘Golems…’ features a serious and stunning rootical cut of ‘Beware of Your Enemy’ - a strong drum and bass studio collaboration between Lee and singer / producer Levi Roots. Levi has become a major league reggae artist, playing to audiences all over the globe, promoting roots and culture with his backing band the ‘Matics’. I asked Lee how they met.

[Lee Digidub] I basically met Levi in a record shop in Brixton - he was in there playing one of his dub plates. The owner of the shop said I should talk to him, so I said ‘Oi, will you sing on a tune I’ve made?’ He agreed, so I sent him a tape and he came down to the studio and did the vocal on it. I want to do some more work with him but he’s just so incredibly busy, doing things like world tours all the time. He’s been to America and Africa recently. His album ‘Break the chains’ released on Soundbox records has done really well and his new one ‘Rasta Jubilee’ is out now. I only knew the stuff that he had done with Aswad as he used to chat and sing with them.

[Smart Monkey] So what’s bubbling with Digidub at the moment ?
[LD] I’ve got the ‘Scrapbodies’ CD out. It’s totally built from sounds that I recorded in a Swedish scrapyard. I used the sounds originally on a soundtrack for a dance piece we’ve been touring but I have now remixed them into the CD called ‘Scrapbodies’. The album is done, so it should be out in the Spring. I’ve also got a vocal album three-quarters done (under the name Smart Alec and Clever Cloggs), a new Dodo album is approaching completion, and I would like to release the Sexy Rubber Sole album ‘Feast of Salt’. There are a few other projects floating about but I will see what happens.

[SM] Where did the interest in Digidub in Europe come from?
[LD] It was with the release of an album we did with a label called Incoming Records in Germany. We had a lot of promotion in Germany and France. Due to that interest we’ve been going back to Germany and France ever since. For every one gig we do in London we do ten in Europe.

[SM] How do you explain that.?
[LD] Better taste (laughs). No, there’s more money and more interest in music which isn’t obviously commercial in Europe - and that has a more avant garde leaning to it. I can play an avant garde set to 1500 people and everybody has a good time and everyone makes some money. If I try that in London people will say to me ‘Lee what the fuck are you doing? What is that about?’ It’s much more open in Europe. The whole scene is far less factionalised .

[SM]‘Scrapbodies’, Lee’s latest planned art attack release, is also the title of a performance art dance piece, a collaboration between Butoh dance and industrial music project, based in Sweden. I asked Lee about how he became involved in writing soundtracks for dance pieces.
[LD] The main dancer is an old friend of mine, Suzannah Arkerlund. I really like her dance style. It’s quite a shocking and strange style of dance. The piece that we are doing at the moment is just her on stage.

Basically, she wanted to work in nightclubs and I was a bit sick of nightclubs, having spent most of my life in them. I wanted to do some more performance-orientated stuff in theatres, with sit down audiences, and also maybe some audiences out in the street in a less traditional art-space - like out on a town-square or something. We both needed a change and together we got it.Suzannah does a lot of performance out on the street, she gets paid by the Swedish government to do big Arts oriented events in all sorts of environments.

[SM] Are they a bit more supportive of the dance medium than they are in this country?
[LD] Yeah, a lot more. I was being paid by the Swedish Government as a composer in residence to the Su-en Butoh Company for three months. Suzannah studied Butoh in Japan for 8 years and she says that it was ‘transmitted’ to her from Hitchikata, the guy who invented it. Hitchikata worked with a woman who he taught in the 1950’s and basically Suzannah got the techniques from her. She [Suzannah] wanted to take this style into the nightclubs and basically what I wanted to do was something really different in the clubs, as well as getting into some theatres, so it was ideal for us to work together.

[SM] How did this go down when you presented it?
[LD] Wicked! Everywhere we’ve performed it’s gone down really well - and we’ve taken it right around the world.

[SM] How did ‘Scrapbodies’ come about?
[LD] In the process of doing a photo shoot for the dancers we got access to a huge giant scrap-yard in Sweden. I took my DAT player and recorded loads of samples just on the off-chance (they let us loose in there over a weekend). I started building these tracks of music out of it and I sent Suzannah one of these tracks as a present, just as a gift to say thank you but also to say ‘Dance to that!’

She phoned me up the very next day. ‘Look Lee, I’ve written a dance piece based on that scrapyard stuff. You have got to do the soundtrack. You’ve already started doing it without knowing.’

This is where the ‘Scrapbodies’ thing really started. I’ve started to call this sort of thing ‘site-specific sonic art’. It’s choosing a site or location and then recording and using sounds only from that place. We premiered the ‘Scrap Bodies’ dance in the scrap yard.

I’ve almost finished that scrapyard thing and now I’m working on a piece called ‘The Thames-Digitised for a new Millennium’ - which is music made from sounds recorded along the tidal Thames during 1999. I’ve also just scored a short Finnish film entitled ‘Routemaster’. The music is made from car noises only and I got paid by the Finnish arts board.

[SM] I asked Lee if this latest work marked a change in direction from the traditional soundsystem days.
[LD] Well nearly everywhere I’ve played I’ve had performers with me. I’ve toured Europe with a women who angleground herself in some very unusual places… and I’ve also toured with a fifteen-foot android who we used to cut up with an anglegrinder. With this Su-En Butoh thing we have been cutting up metal on stage and we’ve had big baths of magnesium that we’ve been dipping, welding and cutting torches into. The magnesium just explodes at the crucial moment during the gig. It’s always got an industrial performance angle to it.

[SM] Do you ever see yourself doing this in England?
[LD] We’ve tried but we didn’t get the funding.

[SM] What’s the problem in getting the funding?
[LD] Everyone that you speak to says that they think it’s wicked - but everyone from the art world who sees it on video or something goes: ‘That’s very interesting and very avant garde, thank you. Who were you again? I haven’t seen you in the art gallery recently’! Or at least that’s how it can seem. So it’s the whole thing about who you know and we don’t know anybody in the arts world (laughs). But Suzannah’s got a lot of contacts in Europe Japan and America - so we tend to play in Europe, Japan and America (ha ha ha).

[SM] Interview ends as Lee is summoned to the decks.
Check out Lee’s recent releases, ‘Scrapbodies’ and ‘The Golems of Digidub’ on his own label, Digidub records. There are also releases on the ‘Wreck This Mess - Remissions 2’ compilation series, alongside Twilight Circus and Audio Active. There is also a stunning digital steppers roots cut on the ‘Roots Connection’ album from Dubwise productions entitled ‘Where are all the Warriors?’.

You can contact Digidub at: Digidub, PO Box 4133, London, SE1 4TY or keep in touch via us @ Free Radical Sounds.

SMART MONKEY

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