VIBRONICS
: DUB ITALIZER
Free Radical Sounds forthcoming compilation album 'Nu Shoots Inna Roots' ( frs003 ), our first roots release contains Vibronics's uplifting and inspiring classic Positive Direction as its opener. A statement itself to the strengh of the Vibronics sound and our belief in their music. I met with Steve Vibronics at Brightons Concorde 2 for one of a whole series of interviews with artists featured on the 'Nu Shoots Inna Roots' album.
B: The gig tonight, something of a gathering of old friends and musical acquaintances. Whose here and where did you first meet?
S: Vibronics wise there’s myself, Richie Roots my M.C who I’ve been working with for 3 years now and there’s Vitamin M who plays live melodica. Madu our new singer was coming but he’s got the flu so couldn’t make it. Then as well as the Vibronics crew there’s Jah Free who I met through Zion Train. I first met Jah Free when I got on a tour bus for a four week European tour. Then there’s Love Grocer who I met again through Zion Train. They were originally Zion Trains brass section. We’ve played quite a few sessions with them now and have known them for a while.B: You’ve done quite a lot of collaborative shows with Jah Free haven’t you ?
S: Yeah. We did an album together on Universal Egg Records called Jah Free Greets Vibronics : Outernational Dub Convention Vol. 1. On that Jah Free had a side and we had a side. It came about after the big four week tour in 1997. The Universal Egg Experience, taking in four country’s, 22 shows in four weeks, an amazing experience. On the tour Jah Free and I started doing two on two dubclashes at all these big European venues and on the strength of that Zion Train suggested that we do an album together. Our stuff works really well together. Jah Free’s stuff is more vocal and traditional where as our stuffs more digital and a bit harder. The two sounds complement one another really well. Also on the strength of the Universal Egg tour we thought we’d get some shows ourselves doing this head to head dubclash thing. It’s really good fun, we enjoy it and it’s really entertaining for people as well. We love to play our own all nite sessions as well but it’s nice with Jah Free’s interaction ‘cause you’re not getting just our story but also the Jah free story as well. It works really well.B: Is that an on going thing ?
S: Yeah, we did it persistently and really heavily when the album came out. That came out late 98 and we spent the next 18 months doing loads of shows together. We don’t do so many together now but we were in Holland and France together earlier on in the year and we’re in Poland and Holland again later on this year, so we still do quite a lot of stuff together.B: Did you find that your sounds influenced each other ?
S: Yeah definitely because originally the Vibronics sound was much more Downbeat / UK Steppers and Jah Free’s stuff is really fast and up for it. The kind of music we were playing originally was written for sound systems. We realised when we were playing it ourselves on smaller club rigs that we needed to put some more energy into it. We weren’t able to rely on just the sheer weight of the rig to carry it through. We had to pick up the pace and get a bit more interaction going. So Jah Free And Vibronics started picking up on each others techniques such as M.Cing tricks, siren control and things. We were learning from each other. He would do something on his siren and I would go "Wow I’ll have a go at that". I’d do a new sound and Jah Free would be like "Brilliant I’ll have a go at that".
B: After the Outernational Dub convention album came Dub Italizer ?
S: Yeah at the end of 2000. It’s our first solo long player, 16 tracks of Vibronics dubwise action. Two songs in particular Jah Music and Positive Direction, both sung by Boney L, have picked up a lot of airplay. Have been played by loads of sound systems and have been picked out by people as really strong tracks. They were, sort of, after thoughts really. ‘cause it was originally gonna be an instrumental dub album. The vocal cuts had come out previously on seven inch only. We thought that as we were doing a CD as well as vinyl, it was a good chance for people who hadn’t bought the singles to check out her singing, ‘cause she’s amazing. Also a tune called Samsara has done brilliantly and is still being played out really heavily by the soundsystems. Yeah it’s been good, good reviews and feedback as well, it’s been cool.
B: So the tune from you that we’ve licensed for our forthcoming ‘Nu Shoots Inna Roots’ compilation, the tune Positive Direction. Can you tell us something about that one ?
S: It’s about soundsystems, "Stack ‘em up, stack ‘em in". It’s about stacking yer boxes up for your soundsystem. Then using them to deliver your positive message and hopefully push people in that Positive Direction. It’s a heavy tune but a little more traditional than some of our other stuff. So it means that people who might not have been into the heavier more instrumental tunes have picked up on it. They’ve then gone on to listen to our heavier stuff. It’s brought us a slightly different audience and has been picked on by loads of people. The dub is more traditional Vibronics territory with loads of echo’s, phasers, big reverbs and stuff.B: There’s a particular quality and rare clarity to your recordings. How do you achieved that ?
S: You’ve got to look at my influences. I love Reggae music, I’ve been listening to it for years but I also love electronic music. I love Chicago House, New York Hip Hop and even some of the R & B that’s coming from the states. They’re using lots of really clean sounds and I love that. I used to play guitar in bands years ago but when I got into making roots music five or six years ago it was completely computer based, all really digital. I’ve just got more & more into that way of doing things. We do use some live instruments from time to time it’s not out of the question but it’s all mainly done in the digital domain. We use Logik on a Mac for all the sequencing and artist recording. We’ve got an Akai sampler, all the drums come out of that. The drums come from numerous sources. We sample them all and use the sampler as a drum machine. I don’t tend to use many sampled loops, I tend to play the stuff in myself. It’s then all mixed on an analogue desk using digital effects but all plugged in so you can feed things back on each other. I’ve always been really interested in the idea of atmosphere. That’s what first drew me to roots music. I’ve always tried to get some space within the music ‘cause that’s the beauty of Dub.
B: Do you have a particular prized piece of kit ?
S: There’s a few I’ve got a Korg Wave Station which must be ten years old now. It’s an early wave table / digital synth and does all these really nice atmospheric pad sounds. I use it a lot for lead sounds. It’s not like really sharp sounding, it’s almost like it’s inferring the melody. I prefer that rather than having really strong melodic bits in it. Also my beloved half rack Boss digital delay, nothing feeds back on an analogue desk like them. We’ve got two and they’re fantastic. Luckily, now we’ve got some really nice valve gear, Compressor’s, Equalisers and a really nice lexicon reverb. I use those cause they make the sound a little bit fatter. But I still quite often go back to the old crusty stuff that I used originally, ‘cause it makes the sound that I like making.
B: Tell us the story of getting your first tune played on a big sound system.
S: I was making music in my bedroom with a really basic set up. A really cheap mixing desk, Atari computer, really cheap modules. All old, cheap and knackered stuff and I was making these tunes. I used to put them on to metal cassette tapes to listen to them. Anyway, I used to go to The Arches in London a lot ‘cause Aba Shanti’s crew were based in Leicester. His box boys, the people who carried his boxes and sold the records for him. I got to meet them through buying records off of them and then I used to go to the dances with them. One day I played a tape to them and they were like "That’s wicked you wanna give that to Aba". So I mixed a few special cuts on to cassette tape and gave it to my mate, who gave it to Aba - Shanti. The next thing I knew, I was at the dance a week later and he was playing it as the second to last tune of the night. There were all these people standing up and saluting the picture of Haile Selasse. I was there, standing by the boxes, thinking god I’ve made this really heavy heavy tune and every one seems to be loving it.I’ve been going to sound systems for years and the idea of being a part of it all is fantastic. It was like wow I’ve really contributed to this rather than just loving it and going home. I’ve helped it to carry on by making a tune that people enjoy. That carried me through, that was a really strong moment.
B: So did you approach Aba and give him anything else ?
S: Yeah. I got to know him and gave him more tunes. I couldn’t afford a D.A.T machine, so I just used to give them to him on metal cassettes. I found out afterwards that I wasn’t the only person giving him tunes on tape. Quite a few people did cause this was back before CD writers and things. So I carried on giving Aba - Shanti exclusive tunes for a couple of years and then I started giving different cuts to Mark Iration ( Iration Steppers ) as well. It just started going off from there, I sent some stuff to a couple of small labels like Dubhead and Universal Egg. Universal egg got back to me and the rest of it all happened.
B: Any new releases on the horizon ?
S: Quite a few things. There’s a Sub Dub album coming out. Sub Dub is the club that puts on Iration Steppers, in Leeds. We played up there last year and they’re putting a compilation together of all the artists that have been up there and played. It’s gonna have us, Zion Train, Disciples, Jah Warrior, Blackamix, Rootsman and Iration Steppers. As a pre cursor to that there’s one really strong tune that I did as an exclusive to Iration Steppers called One Drop. Which is a simple one drop riddim but really heavy. Mark Iration really loves it and has done remix of it. They’re putting a seven inch of it out, with my version on one side and Marks remix on the other side. There’s also two more Deep Root seven inches coming out via Universal Egg featuring Boney L. One called Only One Love and one called Babylon Children. Which is a tune I’ve had kicking around for ages and have now rebuilt. I did a remix for Jah Warrior for his Hughie Izachaar :Can’t Take The Pressure tune. I’ve remixied that and he’s remixing Jah light Jah love. Which was the first seven inch I put out so that’ll be interesting. Also there’s a similar collaboration going on with Alpha and Omega. And obviously the Nu Shoots Inna Roots compilation.
Checkout our Vibronics reviews
Checkout profiles of other artists featured on 'Nu Shoots inna Roots'
