From simonc Sent Mon, Jun 14th 1999, 14:16
From simonc Sent Mon, Jun 14th 1999, 14:16
hi all, since i was going on about the Isle Of Wight sorta psychedelic dub techno Red Snapper types like Fretless AZM and Delta T, thought i'd type up an article from Mixmag last year about them. It's a bit.. over the top - but it gets the message across :) regards, h0l/simon. -- the wight stuff - mixmag feb 1998 by tony marcus What do you do when you live on a beautiful island in the middle of nowhere? Deep on the Isle Of Wight, Fretless AZM, P Nu Riff, Delta T and Hubble have started joy-riding across triphop, jazz, ambient and breakbeat. They're making music to wind your mind and twist your body. -- Stoned in the middle of fucking nowhere, surrounded by water and encircled by posh yacht-going wankers and a community of soon-to-be-dead pensioners. Weclome to the Isle of Wight, a little known bit of the empty coast and misty forest off the edge of England where the upper classes sail their boats, the retired pop off one-by-one and people like us.. well, what do they do? Not much really. Get high, sign on, take shit jobs, leave the island for the mainland or maybe get their shit together and make some fucking music. The Isle Of Wight is so boring it's hard to believe anyone could do anything creative here. Yet a bunch of local heads have found each other and started joy-riding across the borders that divide triphop, jazz, ambient, disco and breakbeat. And even though their bands have weird names like Fretless AZM, P Nu Riff, Delta T and Hubble their sound is tight, organic and funky. Best of all they mix live instruments (and badass drumming) with the cool shapes of dancefloor and post-dancefloor music. Maybe this happens a lot in zombie-dead places: people get funky or they go under. "It's not that boring. We sometimes have little festivals", smiles Pat Watson. Watson's band are Delta T. Their debut album "Lost Arks" is probably the freshest bit of modern dub since "Haunted Dancefloor" from Weatherall's Sabres Of Paradise. But better. It's not unknown, Watson explains, for a load of Wighties to sneak off into the middle of nowhere, build a stage, take a generator, some 'shrooms and some instruments and let what happens just kind of happen... "Things have gone on for days", he adds, "just a handful of us making our own little Glastonbury.. out there somewhere." Now I begin to understand how you survive in a dead-zone like this - turn it into your own private festie-space, get high with your mates, and make music til you drop. Perhaps this is why tracks out of the Isle Of Wight all have this loose, dub-centered, half-acoustic and half-electric jazz feel about them. This crew is drugged-out and dreaming. Some of them have rarely left the Isle. Paul Butler, who drums with Delta T and records solo as P Nu Riff, can recall trips to Reading for the Festival and visiting Cornwall. He's never really been clubbing, and he can't stand London because of the heavy pressure and bad air. For the future he plans to blag a van and travel around the country doing gigs. That and lock himself away in a makeshift studio he's building at the bottom of his parents' garden. "I can't wait", he enthuses, "to build me shed and sit in there all day with a drumkit and write music." Strange kid. He's a fan of the Aphex Twin but also adores the Beach Boys and the Beatles for their natural, acoustic flow. Accordingly his own music has both lunatic and organic qualities. "Sweat On Wood" from his recent debut LP "Between The Downs" (recorded as P Nu Riff) follows ancient Mississippi bluesmen singing over rusty beats with a sunburst of good-times jazzfunk. Other cuts start like a soundtrack to a cool car-chase then collapse into scrambled, musty funk: like the film Bullitt restaged with battling Reliant Robins. A more intense talent is Max Brennan, the first and most prolific of the Isle Of Wight's new artists. He kicked the whole scene off when a tape of his tunes was played in London's Fat Cat record shop. Everyone in the store bumrushed the counter asking about this cool minimal house and drugged-out modern jazz. One of them was Steve Dungey, boss of Holistic Records, who signed Max and then signed his mates. Brennan has now released 12 albums. Triphoppers like him, jazzniks dig him, the Japanese love him and some UK journalists reckon he's a genius. A multi-instrumentalist, he plays keyboards, modular analogues, dums, bass, guitar, sampler and the studio itself. His music is chilled but wild: a time and shape-shifting thing that can morph brush-stroke jazz anbd Ibizan bliss into otherworldly techno gears. Music that winds your body but really twists your head. "You can bring anything and everything together", Max offers, "to one point which isn't in time or space. It's music. It isn't a physical thing. You can pull it from anywhere in time and space and mix it together." Brennan is a troubled figure. When he was a kid, he recalls, he was restless for sensation, moving from glue and aerosol into acid and drugs and finally deep meditation. If he makes any money, he promises, he'll set up an Ashram (an Indian spiritual camp) and studio complex on the island. But like a lot of people who take deep spiritual paths these routes don't seem to have brought him joy. And Max's records have a troubled beauty that's as much to do with something like Nirvana as the funky jazz he likes listening to. "If people have been clubbers they'll find lots of mixed-up drug culture inside my music", offers Max, "there's everything in there really but you do have to listen to it. It's not adrenaline music. It's not going to run out and grab you. You've got to get in there to understand.." Less complicated is his mate Rupert Brown who has chosen to live on the IOW after several years in London as a session player where he worked with everyone from Nigel Kennedy (with whom he recorded two albums) to Roy Ayers and the Lighthouse Family. Brown makes life on the island sound chilled - living on a houseboat with his girlfriend, taking midnight walks on empty beaches, necking ecstacy with Brennan whilst listening to David Icke on the radio (the former Wolves and Coventry goalkeeper, BBC TV sports presenter, born-again Messiah and lover of the colour purple once lived on the island.) He also drums out breaks most junglists would kill for. "When you live on a small island like this", explains Brown, "you're kind of faced with yourself. Which is maddening in many respects because there's no escape really. But that's also good for you because once you get past hating the island then it can be a very creative place. I think it's a very inspiring place." And maybe it is. We hang out on the beach and there's nothing for miles. Just empty coastline, green sea, a few surfers and the English mainland on the distant horizon. There's a good peace here, it could be a desperate vacuum but for the moment it's filled with a live and lithe new music that breathes fresh life into funk, chilled dancefloor and classic dub. Half-empty, half-dead, but edged with beautiful, endless beaches and a similarly alluring sound. -- who's who on the isle of wight Max Brennan is Fretless AZM. Sometimes Paul Butler drums with him.. Paul Butler also records solo as P Nu Riff and plays with Delta T.. Pat Watson, Colin Brocquillon (who once jammed with Supertramp), Kate Smith and Olly are the rest of Delta T.. Rupert Brown records as Hubble and sometimes collaborates with Brennan as Universal Being.