Good evening everyone. How are you feeling? Awake? More awake than 12 o'clock, yeah? Coffee? Red Bull? Stand up and make some noise for our special guest, Mr. Code Nine. Ryan. No, it's just about waking up, you know? Because we've reached that day today. I saw a few this morning people just trying to stay awake. I don't think we need warm up today, unless you want to play a tune to warm up, do you? We could play, yeah. Is there a track out of the ones that you burnt that you'd like to use as a warm-up star jump tune?
This is Code's selected wake-up tune, so you can actually get up and do star jumps or whatever you feel is appropriate. Yesterday, we had Martin who selected Lemon D as his first tune. That was Code 9's wake-up tune of choice. What was that, sir? Remark, the Sign Murderer. RE- That was a tune by Remark called Sign Murderer. And when did that first come into your life? Well, I started hearing those kind of tunes about 93, 94. Not that tune specifically, but I was living in Scotland. and when I first started to hear jungle,
I was like, what the hell is this? Gradually got sucked in, more and more sucked in. So sucked in, I had to leave the country and move to London, and next thing you know, you're inside it. And so where are you from originally, Code 9? I'm originally from Glasgow, grew up in Glasgow. And did you become Code 9 while you were still in Glasgow or after you made the move to London? No, I started DJing in Edinburgh about 1991 and I was running clubs in Edinburgh. But really Code 9 only kind of appeared around about 2000.
I was already in London so... When I started playing, towards the end of the century, late 1990s, early 2000s, I was playing a bit of Jungle, playing a lot of two-step UK Garage, stuff like that. So that's when Code 9 reared his head. Now, I know that a lot of people in the room have been excited about this lecture because you've almost got a cult-like following on Hyperdarvin as a DJ as well. but for the people in the room that aren't familiar with you as a DJ, producer or label man, do you want to give us just a quick overview before we go in deep on each area of what the main things are in your musical life? Yeah. Well, I suppose most people know the stuff I do most in relation to dubstep.
I started playing the kind of slightly darker or more dubbed outside instrumental side of UK Garage around about 99 and that evolved into dubstep eventually and so that's I suppose that's what myself and the label I run Hyperdub is most known for although obviously anyone who knows my DJ sets recently or what we've been releasing on the label for the last few years knows that it kind of reaches a bit wider now into aspects of hip-hop and aspects of house
and, you know, it's become a lot more broader reaching and become closer to what my actual taste in music is as opposed to just being within one micro sub mini genre. I mean I think it's fair to say that people that aren't so familiar with you might immediately go Code 9 dubstep and obviously you're a huge fan of the music that is in and around that genre and have done an amazing amount of work to sort of forward that. But, you know, when you come to hear you as a DJ, it's so broad. You might even hear a Prince record thrown in or I know that that's your true taste.
How has it been sort of on the one hand spearheading and leading a sort of new music movement, but at the same time wanting to sort of express all those sides of your musical personality? well I tend to think that when when my dj sets become more eclectic then actually that's because there's a problem with the the genres I've been associated with or emotionally invested in because usually what I like to do as a dj you like to beat match and I've always said and this was the case with jungle it was the case with garage and to a certain extent dubstep and grime and so on that you kind of want every music possible in the universe
um attached to the specific tempo that you play so you can go anywhere but you're still in a zone tempo wise and i i kind of feel that my dj sets have become a bit more eclectic recently because i'm not fulfilled by the genres I was associated with, I've been associated with so and doing DJ sets that cross tempos is just me hunting around for the stuff that that inspires you. And do you think that you've you know become uninspired by certain elements of that because it's too formulaic or because you're too used to it or what do you think that might be?
I'm certainly uninspired by most what I hear is dubstep these days. There's certain producers who I think for me have remained consistent and that's the dubstep I tend to play. But generally, like I said, I think because if you feel slightly uninspired are unfulfilled by the kind of little world that you live in, the little musical world that you live in, you have to go hunting. And, you know, I haven't had to go hunting so far or so wide. If anything, it's, you know, I still feel there's a consistent vibe in the stuff that I play, but certainly like the certain size of grime
and certain size of UK funky style of house that's been coming through London over the last few years, I've found really inspiring again. And it's not so different in vibe to the kind of dubstep that I always liked. So just, you know, you just make your own little genre. I think when you're dissatisfied with the musical environment you live in, you have to construct your own little world. And I think I've had to do that more and more over the last couple of years. When we were just sitting next door and I said to you, okay, what are some names of some tracks that you'd like to play, maybe to reference? Like the first six you said told me a jazz tune, a jungle tune,
like a disco record or a sort of boogie disco record, a deep sort of, I don't know, that's rhythm and sound type, deep house dub record. It was immediately broad. I mean, which one of those should we go to first and why? Go to start at the beginning really, Miles Davis one. Well, my dad was into jazz and kind of like listening to his tapes, but only really got inside me when I started hearing more electronic stuff. particularly this period of Miles Davis stuff
in the early 70s like Bitches Brew and Big Fun and one of my favourite albums which is On The Corner I really particularly this track encapsulates the whole album in a way because the whole album managed to synthesise influences from indie music synthesising music funk, rock, jazz into the one track so it's clearly a fusion but at the same time a lot of music that I hear as fusion is often a fusion of things you don't want to hear
but for me this track has always stayed with me I've heard it about 20 years ago and the main thing I like about it is just the rhythm pattern is it's got this kind of angular disjointed thing that's a consistent line through a lot of the music I've always enjoyed jungle right through to dubstep and grime and a lot of the hip-hop the instrumental hip-hop and R&B stuff that's around just now so it's got that groove to it but it's also got these weird alien sounds come from nowhere so yeah that's why it's always stuck with me these tracks called black satin so that's miles Davis taken from which
album on the corner right and when did you first come into contact with that it must be late 80s I had a period in the early 90s when I was I had a particularly intense experience in a club in Edinburgh called Chocolate City, which is kind of a rear groove club. And I was hearing a certain track, sort of, a certain style of funk tracks for the first time. Funk tracks that had kind of synths I'd never heard before, like Fred Wesley, Blow Your Head, and these kind of drawny, wiggly synths. so it was maybe just a bit before there you know our late 80s early 90s and um before we play some
more music i think it's relevant to talk about the clubbing experience in scotland because you know obviously the academy's in london this year and we've had norman jay today talking about shaken finger pop and carnival and so many people on the couch able to share their london london clubbing experiences from metalheads all the way through to you know ding walls and whatnot But as a London resident, you're well placed to compare those experiences and those influences to your clubbing experiences in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Could you talk about, you know, your clubbing times then? When I was growing up, I didn't really go clubbing in Glasgow. It was only when I moved to Edinburgh, actually, that I started raving properly. And I used to go to, there was a couple of, there was a venue that's closed now,
I think it got redeveloped into flats or something. But it was a venue in Edinburgh called The Venue. And there was two nights there. There was a club on a Friday night called Pure. Kind of hardcore techno club. Very famous. It was run by the guys that are Optimo. No. Or at least one of them. I don't know. And then there was this other club on a Thursday night called Chocolate City. that was run by a guy from London or England. And it was, I suppose it was a little microcosm of maybe some of the scenes that were going on in London at the time, funk and jazz-related stuff. And so my early raving, formative raving experiences
were between these two nights, Thursday and Friday night in the same venue, totally different types of music. but very influential on me. And then occasionally, there used to be these huge warehouse parties outside of Edinburgh called Resurrection, where everybody had their little white gloves on and their gas masks with Vicks Vaporub inside. And they were quite eye-opening experiences. and I didn't really know clubbing outside of that to be honest until 94, 95 when I kind of went out in London for the first time and you know had jungle and
drum and bass raving experiences which kind of took it up a level. And I'm assuming that your move to London was purely musically motivated at that time or was it just wanting to try something different I lived in London for a summer in the mid 90s but it was only I didn't move here until 99 but since I heard Jungle I felt this kind of very strong but low power magnet sucking me south and it took me it took it about 6 years to work So I moved to England, I moved into the Midlands, and gradually it kept sucking me further south until it finally got me and captured me and stuck me in London.
And I haven't really been able to escape since. I used to escape every weekend, but it always drags me back. And what sort of relationship do you have with the city? Because, you know... I hate it. Shit hole. I mean, it's a love-hate relationship. Yeah, maybe for people that aren't from the United Kingdom, I just want you to put into context the feeling that it must be, you know, Scotland, England, all of the subtlety going on there for a start, but whether, you know, you were torn by wanting to stay where you're from but wanting to move to where the music was. Yeah, I'm actually here doing espionage for the Iron Brew Music Academy. what was the question again we don't have to stay there if you don't want to I was just talking
about whether it was tough moving or not no I mean my parents are English so I'm not I'm only a part time Scott but it's really just music I mean it's music that got me to London it's music that's made me stay. Yeah. Well, instead of going back to the influences, do you mind playing one of your songs just to put us right up to date and put us in context? Maybe we could play Black Sun or something like that. It's not so up to date. It's like... Alright, you know what I mean. This is from last year, right? It came out early last year but I made it in the middle of 2008.
Nice deck. Gold. And this is on your label? Yeah, this is on Hyperdub. Thank you. Black Sun available to buy now on Hyperdub Recordings, which is a label that has been going for five and a little bit years, correct? Yeah, last year celebrating its fifth anniversary. Yeah, we did a fifth anniversary compilation last year.
A couple of double CDs, a CD of old tracks, tracking the last five years and a CD of new stuff. And unlike many artists, as far as I'm aware, there's only a couple of labels apart from your one that you've released your own music on, is that correct? Yeah, I released stuff on Tempa. Yeah. Fat Larry Skank, 2001 or two. Soul Jazz, couple of tracks called Stung, Magnetic City. And so with that in mind, was your label primarily a vehicle for you to release your own music? I mean, that's really the reason I started the label in the first place.
I was actually interviewing Kevin Martin, who's otherwise known as The Bug, for Accelerator magazine, around about 2001, 2002. And when I met him, I gave him a CD of some of the stuff I'd been working on. And on it was this track called Sign of the Dub, which was a cover of Prince's Sign of the Times. and he kind of liked it and he was like oh that's good you should release that i was like uh i can't be bothered to make someone like it i mean it was a beatless it's just a bass pulse with a kind of jamaican spoken word vocal over the top so it wasn't wasn't the most obvious thing that
um people would be like yeah great let's release that so you know i just gave it to him because i thought he might be interested having heard his earlier stuff and he was enthusiastic enough about it that i just felt and he hooked me up with a distributor as well so he made it easy for me so it's really all his fault and um since the labels evolved into a vehicle to release other artists as well as yourself you know what was your mission statement do you have a manifesto with the label what's your vision for it well there wasn't a mission statement originally
it was just you know how do you when you like music when you hear music you like you get a feeling in your stomach or you get a tingle somewhere it's kind of hard to put that into words and call it a mission statement but now I don't know now the label is almost six years old I feel like yeah I know what the mission statement is I just want to release the best producers from all the genres I like so that's a simple mission statement it is simple like in the lecture with Martin yesterday and also talking to Flying Lotus earlier saying one thing that is common amongst artists that I like is that they have their own sound
and I think that's also applicable to your label is that although I couldn't say Hyperdub is a this or that label in terms of genre it definitely has a texture and a sound that people immediately know whether a record would fit or not yeah I mean I don't I don't think it's a particularly eclectic label because I think there is a consistency although I'm still working out what that consistency is but I think there is a consistency to the stuff that comes out in the label and increasingly I'm starting to think that actually it's kind of nice maybe it's just science fiction or something but you just make up your own little genre your own little world that cuts across your favorite genres so it kind of joins the dots between dubstep grime
funky hip-hop house reggae and that's its own little cosmos and actually talking of Martin and Flylo you're performing tonight at brain feeder I know that that's not the first brain feeder show he would have done how did that connection come about well I met flying lotus when I was doing this at the Red Bull Music Academy in Melbourne three or four years ago. I met him on the roof of the building. So yeah, we just kept in contact and started some tunes together that we've never finished. My fault, I think. And because really these Americans just only spend
couple of minutes on tunes and it seems to be done whereas you know they all they all they all make really short tracks as well as weird weirdos um especially the ones from ellie um yeah hippies god what was the question don't worry steve um but with that in mind i mean you know you Everything cross-pollinating, you being able to put Sam I Am out as well as Burial on the same label, you being able to do nights with, you know, Fly Low, Martin, Daedalus and so on, it feels like a very healthy time music-wise and things are cross-pollinating and good music is prevailing.
So is it a good time for you to have a label with all of that? Yeah, I mean, I'm enjoying it. It's very stressful. I think everyone's enjoying it. that's involved in those related little islands that are connected, islands in different scenes that are somehow connected. So the reason I was laughing there is because I just got this memory of, I think Martin was talking, I think Martin had this quote about brain feeder, brain feeder crew, he described them as the Muppets, like the Muppets, Everyone's kind of a different creature of some kind. Everyone's coming from a slightly different world. You set me up with a great question there. Which Muppet am I?
Yeah. I don't know, but he was right when he said Gaslamp Killer was animal. Well, that's just so easy, though. That's the easiest one of all. Come on. Which one are you? I'm a scientist with glasses. Oh, Willie's here. Okay, look. What's up? I thought I was Miss Piggy. I'm Miss Piggy secretly. I didn't know you cared. So talk to me about some of the other artists that you've signed and released over the last five years on Hyperdub, because it really is quite diverse. Sure, yeah. I mean, obviously the most famous one is Burial. All right, so let's go there for a minute. Did you ever anticipate for a second when you went to put that record out
that it would be so phenomenally successful? we were kind of scared it would not sell 500 so no um i mean mainly because we hadn't put an album out before so it was like okay we're going into new territory here we're selling 510 inches at the time so it's like taking a step forward so you you know you tread tentatively didn't really have any ambition for the label so So, yeah, obviously the Burial stuff went down very well and it was just one surprise after another surprise. So, Burial was the first artist that I released on the label
who wasn't myself and Space Ape. How many records did that album sell? The first one? Yeah. Sold 30 or 40 thousand of the CD, you know five to ten thousand of the vinyl. A lot more. Ballpark? More. And so just to put it in context for us all people that don't run a label at the moment, You know, what for the average artist, specialist music artist, if you like, what could what would you anticipate selling on a good day?
Yeah, I mean, we mostly release 12 inches and they do generally twelve hundred to three and a half thousand. which you know 10 years ago 15 years ago is it's a joke to be honest because i know like for example drum and bass in 90s house music techno in the 90s you know you triple that quadruple it and more you know big dance records um someone could live off the record sales whereas that's a very rare phenomena, I think, in underground music these days. So, you know, I think we're all having fun, but things are very different from the 90s, I think,
when, you know, clearly what's happened is there's been a rock music, indie music resurgence, and you know the idea of a faceless electronic music producer is kind of slightly out of vogue generally these days Don't you feel that that cycle is coming back now? At this point? I'm not sure Not in a Not sure I'm not convinced it is actually I think we're still losing out to guitars. Right, okay. But I mean, talking of faceless, how do you explain pretty much little or no press,
absolutely no presence, a faceless producer, 30,000 first record, and that's not a bad look for an independent record label that needs to survive? Yeah, I know. I mean, it's certainly helped the label survive. It means the label doesn't have to care whether other producers' records sell or not, which is obviously great. You don't have to use business to make aesthetic decisions. But Burial really still is an exception. You know, people try and sound like him, nobody quite sounds like him, nobody quite has that level of emotion packed into the tracks. And, you know, since burial, there's been a spate of, you know, people trying to do the faceless, faceless thing, but it just doesn't, I don't know, it doesn't wash for me.
it seems a bit contrived whereas the thing the unique thing about burial was it's even no matter how much cynicism his anonymity seemed to create amongst people who just didn't trust that it wasn't a marketing ploy um you know it's just naive innocent desire not to be in the spotlight or known for anything apart from his music what was the question? well I mean I remember when that record was nominated for Mercury and I remember
opening the Sun newspaper if you're not from the UK the Sun newspaper is a tabloid here that has the highest circulation beyond I think pretty much any other paper and um you know on page three or something or page five it was like you know who is burial which the the mission to unmask burial what was that whole time like for you as as label manager were people phoning you up from tabloid newspapers it's pretty horrible actually um that track black sun actually came off the back of a burnt copy of the sun newspaper it was just annoying really annoying, irritating the journalist who was involved with that was Scottish it was particularly embarrassing I was burning kilts
that's what he said yeah it was just really irritating more than anything it was like you know all the guy wants to do is have a quiet life and it's not as if he's a politician or Paris Hilton you know someone who's actively seeking attention he's definitely not Paris Hilton just in case somebody thinks that that was a hint into his true identity strange thought yeah really irritating and it you know it makes you kind of recoil and close in like close down
the ranks and and really just makes you want to hide basically then not let anyone into the into your kind of not speak to anyone, not speak to the press at all, not tell anyone anything, be really secret about everything. So I don't think it's a particularly healthy reaction to have. I mean, it is quite rare for an independent record label to have sales like that. So if you had hostile bids from people and people trying to sign, I mean, I guess he's the kind of character that's interested in staying loyal to you anyway. Yeah, to be honest, he's not bothered. He's just not really bothered. He's just, you know, living, getting on with his life.
And I think he did have a few approaches through the back door, MySpace and so on. Nothing came through me. I think a couple of people, I sniffed out a couple of people and, you know, put the shutters up. Well, do you want to play us a, I mean, it can be Burial, anyone else on the label, have you got another track from Hyperdub that you like to play right now? We should probably play some burial. So this is one of my favorite burial tracks. Which is the first track off his first album. The track is called Distant Lights.
Burial Discent Lights off the first Burial album, also on the Hyperdub anniversary compilation. And that compilation is a great start if you haven't got any Hyperdub, because is that the comp there? There's Darkstar, Sam I Am, Fly Low, Burial, Coolie G, Zombie, Martin, Iconica, Joker. What about some future people that you're going to be releasing? Well, the next...
We've just released a couple of tracks by new artist, the Hyperdub, although actually quite well-established artist, a guy called Terror Danger, grime producer who's right up there with Wiley as one of the most well-known and best grime producers. So we've just done a 12 from him. We've got another 12 coming in a few months. and some tracks by another kind of ex or part-time grind producer, part-time funky producer called Scratcher, goes under the name DVA, who does the breakfast shows on Rinse FM. Should I play some of those? Yes. Just play quick snippets.
This is the Scratch a DVA track called Natty. Terradanger, right? Yeah, he's... He's always been one of my favorite drum producers, like rhythm producers. And this is the next, that's the last two releases, Natty and Acid.
Thank you. And the next release is by young guy, I think he's 18 or 19 from Detroit, called Kyle Hall. We've got 12 coming from him in a few weeks, which is two tracks. One's called You Know What I Feel. The other one's called Key Chunk. It feels to me like you're really supportive of extra young producers as well, and new producers like Iconica, Kooli G, and obviously Kyle is super young. how do you find the people and you know do you feel like you want to put them on before they're ready or do you just make sure that everything's up to a certain standard before
you release it? I don't know I'm not so interested in releasing music by people that are ready you know I mean someone's releasing loads of music releasing on loads of labels great you know good luck to them but for some reason I'm not I don't know what the function of Hyperdub is but i'm not sure it's we're not sure that's its main function to release people who who've are already releasing lots of stuff although to completely contradict what i've just said obviously terror danger has been releasing stuff for about 10 years no that's cool i just think it's inspiring you know the fact that you are so encouraging of brand new talent from wherever from detroit from london from wherever and you know you're willing to to put out records by 18 19 year old producers that no one's heard of yet because people trust you as a tastemaker with your
label and you know it's encouraging to everyone in the room i think everyone will agree with that yeah i mean the guy the guy who's helping me run the label now a guy called marcus has got amazing taste um amazing a and r great ears and you know he it was him that introduced me to cow hall and so i think we kind of work quite well together in that respect um let me just play a bit of this track. Just need to check it's the right one. Not sure which side to play. So this one's called, you know what I feel.
Nice, thank you for the little preview, future hyperdub preview. Now I've got to say, I do not know many label heads, slash DJ, slash musical visionaries that have also got a PhD and have written a book. So, I do know. What's your PhD in? Are you Dr. Kode? Yeah, it was in philosophy. It was specifically about philosophy and warfare, information warfare, and philosophy and physics and cybernetics and so on.
so the book is kind of that all that stuff nothing to do with music incidentally it was all that stuff thrown into the big pot with all the music some of the musical issues that was interested in not as a musician or a producer but just as a researcher and yeah that's what it is sorry that was really distracting in terms of sound though you are a scientist whenever I DJ with you or if we have the opportunity to sound check you know most people I know like just choose a record that they think would be good I've heard you use like pink noise and white noise
and frequency tests and you know I mean to you the science of sound is obviously important to the level where you've written a book called Sonic Warfare sound effect and the ecology of fear i've never used done that in a sound check i think it must have been an old dub plate and it was just loads of crackle you know i just played in a soundtrack i just play the tracks i like mostly off dub plate because it's got tense for me to sound rounder and warmer the bass sounds i usually use a like a mala track on dub plate to sound check with because if the system can handle that he doesn't put a lot of mid-range in his tracks, if he can handle that
amount of space and that depth and width of sub then that's usually good, but those records are also usually in a pretty bad state, so that will be the pink noise, white noise black noise Sonic Warfare, what is that? it's the book yeah all right thanks thanks steve but um in terms of frequency i mean you know there is a science obviously sonic warfare was something that was tested by the u.s military officially and i'm not sure if that's how you're talking about it here obviously but um you know frequency obviously has a physical psychological and physical effect is that something that you go into in this book and is that something that you're particularly interested in yeah the book's basically about the politics of frequency
so politics of frequency in military context of you know u.s army using acoustic weaponry in iraq or israeli army doing low flying and can you give us an example of where you know in a military setting how people have used sound before well some of the examples I give in the book an early example which I always thought was kind of interesting was in the colonial period in Jamaica there was a kind of tribe called the Maroons and they used these horns kind of ram's horns called the abeng
and the Abeng, so they used to communicate with each other using just blowing into this horn, kind of trumpet type sound, and to use it to communicate in the jungle over, you know, secretly or not so secretly, but what became apparent is that the English colonialists in Jamaica at that time were petrified by this high-pitched sound, because they didn't know what it was and you know they're in the jungle they're from England they're kind of out of their home turf and not only that but these these devices were usually coupled with the planning of ambushes where you know the Marines would basically
early guerrilla warfare they'd be camouflaged as a jungle and then suddenly like in the film predator like the quote famous sample from film predator the jungle would just come alive and take take the the the english the british um so that that's kind of a interesting example for the book because the book's about the way certain frequencies instill fear um and the way you know it's kind of about uneasy listening uh or the way sounds used to create a bad vibe which is not something i'm always trying to do as a DJ or a musician, but it's something I was kind of interested in theoretically. So it's more about the ecology of fear rather than, you know, bass.
It's more about what frequency can do to us psychologically. Yeah, so bass is just a strong example. I mean, there's lots of bass in the book because it's just a good example of the way the physicality of sound, the way you feel it whether you can hear it or not it's something, feel vibration but there's also lots of stuff about very high frequency sounds sounds that are so high you can't hear them but that still have like neuro affective still have neuro affects, still change the way you feel and so a lot of the book is actually about sounds you can't hear either too low in frequency or too high in frequency.
So having delved deep, deep into those dog frequencies, how does that affect you in turn when you're making your own music? Does it make you think too much about that? Do you know which of the bad frequencies to eliminate? I can't finish tracks anyway, so it makes no difference. No, I mean, it's really... I know it's natural for people to want to see the connections between the book and my music, and clearly there is some, but really they're not, you know, it's a different person. It's a different person. It must be impossible, though, when you're in a project as deep as a book to separate that from your, you know, when you're off doing gigs every Saturday, you know, to separate, to not to think about it while you're doing both things.
Sure. I mean, I just think it's healthy practice to keep them separate. Because I think if they all came together, then I'd just implode in a puff of smoke, just disintegrate. How long did this project take? How long did it take to make this book? It didn't take too long once I actually got a book contract, but it took me ages and ages. It took me years, like three, four years just to get the contract, and then two or three years to write it, to finish it once I had a book contract. so again you know a lot of the the core ideas that are not particularly musical would i developed when i was doing a phd so the hard job was translating that into musical into sound
related stuff and not just being genuinely about um computers networks warfare guerrilla warfare information warfare and so on. And not only are you an author, label head, DJ, but you're also a lecturer as well, right? Yeah, I teach music culture, related stuff, and film sound, sound design at University of East London. I just come from there today. and um how do you find it balancing all of these different hats you wear next um okay music and education how do you find that is that you know so there's an argument that
says you know um music in the academic world or over intellectualizing music can kill it for you or is unnecessary or whatever? What's your findings in that being directly involved in academic music? I suppose the way I see academia is the way I see music. Most of it's a bit crap. The good stuff is good. I really don't agree with that idea that if you conceptualise about music, you kill the vibe. If you conceptualise about it badly, maybe I'm doing it badly in the book, I don't know, but if you do it badly you kill a vibe just like if you make bad music or you spoiler you know you clear the dance you see if you do a bad mix you clear a dance floor
um so which dog story um got me worried it is it is related to frequency i think you were telling me about djing in a festival do you want to tell that story sure um i'm not sure how it's related but you were talking about clearing dance floors frequency dj nightmares this is an example of where if only i had people on the dance floor to clear and we're doing i was playing at some festival in italy and Pescara I think it was and really it was a festival was dominated by trance music and
there was a huge you know fascist rally trance ten everyone's like sorry to any trance producers here no I'm not that sorry actually and you know I was playing I think Plastician was playing Carl Craig, we were all playing in the same tent. And there was a priceless moment in the middle of our set. Literally, there was no one there, and there was 4,000 trans-fascists in the next-door tent. And this black Labrador walks up into the middle of the dance floor. Actually, it's a festival on a beach,
so the black Labrador comes from somewhere probably strolls out of the ocean comes and sits in the middle of the dance floor, kind of stares at us for a bit stands up, takes a shit and then walks off to the but I really don't believe in this idea that certain frequencies can make you go to the toilet Anyway, you were saying. I can't remember. What was I saying? It had something to do with DJing and anyway. Maybe we should play another record after that story. I don't really know how to top it. Can you play a tune and then I'll ask you if you've got any questions too.
Can you play one of yours? Yeah. So this is, I mean, well, I was going to say this is one of the few tracks I've finished recently, but it's not. I don't think it is finished, but this is something I've done recently. It's currently called Skank, but I don't know. It might change. Sick. Okay, question time. Who's got a question? Of course. Why break tradition? What does that mean?
It's the first time I'm asking a question. Hey. This is going to be fun. So I preserved many labels in the last 10 years. It started out as a blog. Isn't it? it wasn't so much a blog it was like uh yeah it was a kind of mini web web magazine yeah i think so okay so you have a mini web magazine and you start posting content okay what's the next step to becoming a six-year-old successful label what was the bit in between the magazine and the label getting bored of running a magazine not having enough time not having interviewed all the
producers I want to interview in getting bored of my short one-year self-employed career as a journalist in which I would write for my own website. But when did you how did the releases started happening? How did it become an actual label? Well, like I said, it became a label because a friend of mine, Kevin Martin, the bug, kind of was quite enthusiastic enough about some of the tracks I've been working on with a vocalist, Space Ape, then called Daddy G, that just like, you know, I suppose part of It was just kind of getting bored of trying to make other people like the music.
Trying to get signed to another label. Getting bored of that process. So he helped us hook up some distribution. And that's it, really. I mean, you get it. That's it. Everything else is boring. Get tracks mastered. blah blah blah and you're probably the right person to ask this what's the hardcore continuum? I'm not the right person to ask that but I'll tell you what it is anyway it's really just one way of quite a good way of describing certain evolution of music in the UK
from hardcore through jungle, drum and bass Speed Garage, UK Garage, Grime, Dubstep, Bassline House, UK Funky. You know, America... That's what I wanted to get. In a sense, America has hip-hop. We, in this country, have the hardcore continuum. Yes, of course, yeah. The boom bap tradition, soul funk. But what I wanted to get is, I mean, UK Funky does seem to come from some other place. and... but you're signing UK Funky sounding artists... Why do you think it comes from another place? Because it sounds different. The BPM is different. Sure, but the BPM between Dubstep, Grime and Jungle was all different.
Of course, but it's all bass music, I guess. UK Funky does have other soccer sounding stuff. No, is the answer to that. Okay, okay. No, that's about it, I guess. Yeah. I was just interested in, you sort of touched on that a little bit before, about when you come up to a gig, possibly probably at a venue that you've never played before and you're trying to work out a sound system. as a DJ that you do, is there a process that you kind of go through or you just kind of hope for the best?
Yeah, I'm not scientific about it at all. I mean, it's really like, I'll get out of the play that I know has got a lot of bass and hope that the sound, and I'll listen to that particular record, which I'm used to hearing a lot of different system sounds. And sometimes, okay, it sounds terrible, you start complaining. I mean, really, this is what the politics of frequency is about and how it affects me as a DJ. It's about fighting sound engineers in clubs for more bass. Here it says that it's the transdisciplinary micro-politics of frequency that breaks with the orthodoxies of phenomology and cultural studies. That doesn't sound like fighting with a sound engineer.
It does. That's a bit of a fancy way of saying it. No, like I said, fighting with sound engineers is how the politics of frequency works on me as a DJ, but that's got nothing to do with the book. Okay. Anyway. So, you know, it's just like, okay, you hear a record you're used to on a sound system that you're not used to, and usually it doesn't sound so good. So either you try and work out with the sound engineer how to improve it. A lot of sound systems with very basic music,
it will sound very muddy. Either you won't hear the low-end frequencies at all or you'll hear them but you won't feel them or it will sound very muddy because the system's been tuned up for house and they're not used to sub, let's say, sub-60 hertz frequencies. It's always just trial and error. It's always completely different. The only thing that's consistent is I'll tend to play similar producers' records. Producers, I know their dub plates will test the system and if the system can deal with that, you know everything else is okay. Alright, cool. Hi. I was just wondering how would you recommend making track with nice low low low and bass?
Does it have to do with the monitors or the equipment? It's a little bit more technical question. It's not difficult to do. I mean, because I'm not particularly technical or scientific. I don't think about bass frequencies. I don't use those kind of higher mid-range, a lot of higher mid-range bass sounds that are filtered and do all kinds of crazy wobbling things. I just use a basic sine wave sub. and you know you you'll usually you have some kind of fight going on between the sub and the kick drum and there's there's ways of dealing with that um sometimes you win that battle
and sometimes you don't i feel that i'm always losing that battle so um you know it's not it's really getting low end on the track it's not rocket science it actually it seems more to do with your ears and preference. But there's certain technical things I'm not so good on that other people have told me about, about certain notes that tend to translate, certain bass notes that tend to translate because they have a lot of resonance with the higher frequencies, the octaves higher and so on. And so, I mean, I tend to build tracks from the bottom up,
starting with the sub, so like you would with a house. You build the foundations, and then you construct on top of that, and then it all caves in, and you have to go back to the beginning again. But I really don't have... There's nothing technical I'd recommend to people, apart from if you like low-end frequencies, it's really not difficult to put them in your music. It's difficult to make them. It's difficult to make space around low end frequencies and keep them from sounding flabby and muddy and not drowning out frequencies that have actually got nothing to do with the low end. You know, often if your sub is too high, your snare will get drowned out,
even though they're in completely different frequency ranges. I find that in my own music all the time. It's like, where's the snare gone? It's disappeared in this swamp of low end. Obviously, there's certain things you can do with your kicks and your subs and the way they interrelate. You can sidechain it so that when the kick comes in, the sub dips. It's like carving out or sculpting out a hole in the sub so there's space for the kick. But I, you know, that's the kind of question I would ask someone else. All right, thanks.
Any more questions? Going once? Going twice? Oh, I think I'm afraid it's participants only at this time of night, I'm afraid. And any time of day thereof. So is this book out and to buy? Yeah. Are you around for more than half an hour now if participants wish to have a quick chat with you afterwards? Yeah, sure. What is your set time tonight? 2.30. I'm playing back-to-back with Martin. There you go. 2.30 to 4. Can you get a track ready to play us out? And in the meantime, while you do that, can you all join me in saying Code9, thank you very much indeed.