Spiral Staircase

This is the fifth of five Luke Vibert posts, from my ongoing collaboration with reader Spencer- we have a new project that should have started by now. I've been a bit all over the place with things in recent weeks but will make every effort to get onto that now this run of posts is coming to a close. 

In 2004 Luke Vibert in his Wagon Christ mode held a remix competition via the magazine Future Music CD. That competition was won by Aphex Twin who remixed Wagon Christ's Sci Fi Staircase into this...

Spiral Staircase [Future Music Competition] (AFX Remix) 

It is Richard D James at his very best, opening with alternating synth notes and then an acid squiggle. A crunchy breakbeat hits after forty seconds and the three elements loop and spiral around each other, a hiss eventually pushing in too. More synths, a rising and falling topline that dances, almost visibly. The sudden stop at two minutes twelve gives the shortest of breaks and then the second half develops, more of the same but different slightly. There is some very loud sub-bass kicking in before the end section at around four minutes goes much deeper, into ambient techno territory and a long ending, sub bass capable of making car speakers jump from their moorings. It is deceptively beautiful, endlessly imaginative and quite beautiful. 

It may seem a little unfair that Aphex Twin won the competition. He knows Luke well from Cornwall and he put out many of Luke's recordings. On AFX's Soundcloud page he added some notes about the track which I put here verbatim...

best way i can explain this was falling in love with someone that didnt exist, it couldve been applied to anyone and everyone.
liferush.
I mean it was for luke's competition but when I was making it I obviously had other thoughts going around me ed.
Was hard keeping it a secret from him, i had an advantage, i knew better than most what luke liked !-)
I gave the prize to the runner up, i forgot his name now.
It's quite quiet because the sub is so loud and low, trade/off.

I've sequenced the five Luke Vibert tracks from this mini- series into one twenty- seven mix but including the alternative version of Spiral Staircase rather than the one above, a minute shorter and opening with that sub bass wobble and then the dancing melody line. 

Bagging Area/ Spencer Luke Vibert Mix

• Plug: Me And Mr. Jones
• Luke Vibert: Doozit
• Kerrier District: Disco Nasty
• Wagon Christ: Spiral Staircase [Future Music Competition] (AFX ALTRemix)
• Luke Vibert: Back With Me

The previous posts with my warblings about each track are here- Plug's Me And Mr Jones, Doozit, Kerrier District's Disco Nasty and Back With Me. 

Back With Me

My collaboration with reader Spencer, an irregular series where he sends me a song and I write about it, has focussed recently on the output of Cornish DJ/ producer Luke Vibert. In previous weeks I've posted the Hammer House of Horror/ drum 'n' bass of Mr. Jones And Me, the sampledelic Doozit and the funked up sci fi of Kerrier District. After a break of a couple of weeks, I'm back on the Vibert trail today with a 2017 rave/ house thumper, Back With Me. It was a track that was new to me, from a 2020 compilation album out on Hypercolour Patterns along with artists such as DMX Crew, A Sagittarian and Alphonse. Back With Me is a perfect spring pick me up, filled with energy and a desire to nothing me than make you smile/ dance. 

Back With Me

There's a lot going on here although it sounds very simple- a well chosen vocal sample, some hyperactive rave stylings, breakbeat drums, rising early 90s synth chords and a piano part that hits hard. Although Back With Me sounds very simple, basic even, there's lots going on and the production is superb. The breakdown and re- entry just before the three minute point and subsequent siren send this into orbit.

The vocal sample is from a 1986 underground electro single by Petria, I Miss Your Love, a record that conjures up all kinds of 80s- isms. 

Me And Mr. Jones

This is the third of a run of posts featuring the music of Luke Vibert, courtesy of reader Spencer sending me a song each week for me to write about. We've got plans to change the nature of this collaboration a bit in the upcoming weeks so this may the end of one run of posts before the start of something new. The previous Luke Vibert posts were Disco Nasty, Luke in his Kerrier District guise, and last week's Doozit from a 2015 album called Bizaster. Today sees Luke as Plug and a track from an album from 1996, Drum 'n' Bass For Papa. 

Firstly I should probably say that this track was new to me, coming to me via the internet after a twenty- three gap. Secondly, I was never a big fan of drum 'n' bass. In the 90s dance music was a forward thinking and progressive musical form, constantly shifting and dividing, new genres and sub- genres spinning off from the centre. In that spirit I often felt I should go with the new, be open to the new forms- but drum 'n' bass never really clicked with me. I had/ have a couple of Goldie singles (inevitably), some 12" singles by Photek, maybe one or two other things but that's about it. 

Luke Vibert made so much music and in so many different musical styles under a slew of different names. His drum 'n' bass output on Blue Planet is highly regarded and Drum 'n' Bass For Papa featured highly in some of 1996 and 1997's end of year lists (it was released in the US in '97). Clicking play a week ago did made me wonder what I'd make of some mid- 90s drum 'n' bass, all these years later, a non- aficionado of the music.

Me And Mr. Jones

Luke's trademark sense of humour, love of off kilter and quirky samples is as much a part of his drum 'n' bass recordings as the rest of his work. Me And Mr. Jones starts out like cartoon horror, the shlocky sounds of 1970s Hammer House Of Horror- organ, echo, a spooky voice- and then the drums hit, rapid fire breakbeats, the jolting stop- start rhythm and deep sub- bass. The track twists and turns onwards, spitting out of the speakers as the staccato horror film strings sweep about in the background, piano runs drop in and a voice hums. The breakdown at the end, the breakbeat cutting out, brings in a a brief burst of 70s funk bass and then it's over. Luke takes two things that haven't been put together before and makes them seem like obvious bedfellows- amazingly it still sounds very fresh all these years later, a very leftfield exploration of sound and rhythms.

Doozit

My collaboration with Spencer took a week off last week- not Spencer's fault, he sent me the track almost immediately after I posted Kerrier District's Disco Nasty nearly two weeks ago. I got a bit sidetracked by things last week and the blog followed suit. Jesse said last week's posts were a wave I was surfing, especially the run from Tuesday to Friday with the pair of posts about Isaac and grief, Fontaines DC, Nicks Drake and Cave, and then the pigs and D: Ream post on Friday. Looking back at last week's posts this description of them as a wave rings true although I'm not sure if I was riding the wave or being pulled by it. Today, we're going back to Spencer's songs and a follow up to the Kerrier District track, with some more from Luke Vibert.

Doozit

Doozit kicks off with a snatch of banjo and a voice saying, 'let us do unto others... before they do's it to you there'. The drums come in, and then another drum track joins, giving it a skittish feel. The bassline and synth chords lift it. There are more layers of analog sounds, a bit of dub echo, another voice, then another, 'alright! Do you like that?' and some phat rave hoover bass. It feels live, like a cut and paste hip hop DJ playing several records at once while the soundman adds some dub FX. Infectious fun. 

Doozit is from 2015 and an album called Bizarster. One of the things about Luke Vibert (and fellow Cornish techno producer Aphex Twin) is the sense that he can produce music in his sleep, a torrent of tracks filling hard drives. It feels like he can set up a skittering, catchy drum track, lay a synth melody or computer game soundtrack on top, find something to mess it up slightly and drop a vocal sample in, taken from 70s TV or a library album, before he's finished his first hot drink of the day. The tracks sound effortless and unforced, a natural flow that just happens. 

Disco Nasty

My weekly collaboration with Spencer (he sends me a song, I write about it) has been all about whimsical/ fragile/ fried/ odd psychedelia thus far in 2023, from the very English suburban psychedelics of Woo to John Stout's early 80s proto- electronica, the oddball 50s cool jazz/ spoken word of Ken Nordine to Eden Ahbez's pre- hippy Beatnik exotica and the blues chill of Brian Eno's The Moon's Lament. But now we're turning a corner and heading elsewhere, a change of pace and vibe to match the change in the seasons- today's song from Spencer is a Luke Vibert tune

Disco Nasty

We're still in tripped out territory, but rather than the introspection of the recent songs, this is dance floor funk, science fiction funk maybe but booty shaking funk all the same. The bass is a mind twisting, distorted, bouncing line. Bleeps fly in and out. The hi- hat tsk tsk tsks. The sounds begin to layer up, shape shifting and morphing, synth notes bent and modulated.  Eventually a super- distorted voice interjects, something unintelligible. Wah wah synth toplines ride in and out. Distorted disco funk for the outer reaches of the galaxy. 

Disco Nasty of from Kerrier Disstrict, Luke recording under the same name. He's is closely connected to Aphex Twin and Aphex's Rephlex label and his releases in the 90s were in the techno, drum and bass and then trip hop arenas, diving headlong into drill 'n' bass along the way as Wagon Christ (one of my favourite 90s artist pseudonyms). Kerrier District came out in 2004 on Rephlex. It feels much more recent than that and it's with a bit of a shock I realise this album is now nearly twenty years old. You can buy it digitally here.