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Interview: Mary Anne Hobbs

September 15

So, here we go with another review/interview dislocation special. If you're wondering what I'm on about, we reviewed Mary-Anne Hobbs' new compilation 'Wild Angels' a couple of weeks back. In brief, it's great. So to follow on from the review, we asked the lady herself to answer a couple of questions for this fine publication. She's currently on tour in the US, (dates below) so if you're in any of those cities, get over to the show. Thanks to Mary Anne for taking time to put up with our Q's!

1. What were your aims in putting this compilation together?

It's fascinating to me to watch the way that electronic music moves
forward in thousands of tiny scattered steps every day.. 'Wild Angels'
is made up of a collection of Transatlantic producers building new
creative causeways brick by brick.. beyond the core sound of dubstep,
hip-hop, soul, folk and electronica.. and out into the future..

2. The compilation feels like it has really built on the LA-Glasgow
weird-hop sound. How did you first encounter this sound and what draws
you to it?

It all started with Flying Lotus for me.. the first time i saw him
perform at Cargo in London.. i was supposed to meet him after the show
and say hi.. he wrecked my head so completely that i could not form a
sentence and i literally had to leave the building.. Fly Lo and Daddy
Kev have given me the keys to LA and i'm eternally grateful to them..
the Brainfeeder and Low End Theory families in LA are some of the most
inspirational people i will ever meet in this life or the next...

Simultaneously, the work of Rustie, Hud Mo and Mike Slott.. LuckyMe,
Wireblock and All-City has also left an indelible imprint on my
soul...

3. Now that dubstep seems quite well established, how much do you feel
you need to push away from the centre into the weirder fringes?

I am so proud to see artists like Skream and Benga enjoying such major
success. Skream with a gold record for the La Roux remix and Benga
working with Eve.. Pharell ringing out their phones.. And although I'm
always so excited to hear what they will come with next, my work with
them is all but done.. My mission has always been to move forward..
the show evolves constantly and if it didn't i would never have found
people like Skream & Benga in the first place..

4. Synths, melody, and off-kilter rhythms play a very big part in this
compilation. Do you feel that there is a swing away from minimal
sub-bass purism? And the good old halfstep?

Progression is the key.. i'm interested in artists who are coming with
something unique and elemental.. What's the point in replicating sound
that already exists?

5. You've been at Radio 1 since 1997. I found 90s Radio 1 really
inspiring - One In The Jungle, Mark & Lard's random poetry, Blue Jam,
or of course the Breeze Block - it seemed a very 'open' time. Is that
a reasonable assessment, and if so, why did Radio 1 take such creative
leaps?

My my... you have exquisite taste in radio.. Radio1 has been
responsible for some really challenging and intelligent broadcasting..
The BBC never underestimate the intelligence of their audience.. they
understand that pop and comedy rule in the daytime.. but they are
happy to let people like myself and Chris Morris off the leash in the
dead of night, because they recognise that the BBC need to set a
creative bar.. and they should be taking risks.

6. What was the original ethos behind The Breezeblock? Now that
'Breezeblock' has been dropped from the name, has the aim of the show
changed at all?

There's no difference at all between the two shows.. it was a decision
the Radio1 management took, to drop all the show names... so The Lock
Up, The Blue Room, The Essential Selection etc all went at the same
time as Breezeblock..

7. What is a Mary Anne Hobbs club set like? How do you balance the
experimental and the dancefloor stuff?

You've gotta wreck a dancefloor.. people have paid good money to dance
and sweat and laugh and let loose.. but hopefully you can work plenty
of deep and twisted curveballs into the set and play every rainbow
colour in the spectrum..

8. Any future plans we should know about?

US Tour: (a dream come true.. i feel like i'm 16 again!!)

Thursday September 10 - Smartbar (DubFix Party) – Chicago, IL
Friday, September 11 - 103 Harriet St, (Afterburn Party) – San Francisco, CA
Saturday, September 12 - The Cellar at Agenda -- San Jose, CA
Wednesday, September 16 - Holocene – Portland, OR
Friday, September 18 - Love (Dub War Party) – New York, NY
Saturday, September 19 - Shadow Lounge (SubDivision Party) – Pittsburgh, PA
Sunday, September 20 - Barcelona (MadClassy Party) – Austin, TX
Wednesday, September 23 - Low End Theory – Los Angeles, CA
Friday, September 25 - Cervantes (Bass Invasion Party) w/Skream – Denver, CO
Saturday, September 26 - Decibel Festival – Seattle, WA

9. What's the best and worst parts of your job?

My job is ideal.. Kode 9 did a brilliant interview for Wire magazine
where he talked about being 'possessed' by this whole thing.. It does
drive you to the brink of madness, but conversely, that's exactly
where i like to live..

----------

i.d.

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Review: Mary Anne Hobbs 'Wild Angels' [Planet Mu]

Without wanting to gush, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Mary Anne Hobbs is one of the most influential DJs operating within the realms of electronic music today. For several years now, she has been pushing some pretty esoteric sounds via her late night Radio One show in its various incarnations - latterly the Breezeblock, now eponymously titled – and since the advent of the internet, her worldwide listener base is very probably well into the millions. The show has been instrumental in ushering the sounds of underground UK bass music onto the worldwide stage; witness, for example, the way in which the seminal ‘Dubstep Warz’ broadcast from January 2006 spread like wildfire across the globe via internet forums, paving the way for Skream et al to become the globally recognised names they are today. Capitalising on, and indeed fuelling the rapid ascendency of the genre-straddling bass music sound, Hobbs also compiled two hugely popular CDs – ‘Warrior Dubz’ in 2006 and ‘Evangeline’ in 2008 - that joined the dots between dubstep, dnb, techno, and bass-heavy electronics.

So, this brings us neatly onto Wild Angels, the third compilation overseen by Mary Anne and brought to us via the good people at Planet Mu. First impressions are that the overall vibe has moved away from the spacious techno / dubstep vibe represented last time around on ‘Evangeline’, and towards the more playful synth-heavy sound that has been emerging in recent months from Glasgow, Amsterdam, LA and of course Bristol. Indeed, probably my favourite track on here comes from Bristol’s own Gemmy, one of the foremost exponents of the Purple Wow sound, with the killer ‘Rainbow Road’. The track switches between a steady four to the floor kick drum pulse and a staggered halftime beat with neon synth squiggles liberally plastered all over, plus bass that is both large and in charge. I’m also a big fan of the similarly synth driven ‘LHC’ by Brackles, if only because there’s a bit at the start which sounds almost exactly like the in game music from ‘Sim City 2000’.

Beyond that, I really enjoyed the Hudson Mohawke and Mike Slott tracks on here; they both combine loose, loping hip hop drums with the aforementioned neon synth burbles and sufficient groove to keep the head nodding. If I had to make a criticism, I would say that a few tracks in the middle of the running order were just too… dare I say it… wonky to really work for me. Then again, I am listening on headphones on a grim Monday night in my flat in Hackney, so perhaps in a club situation things would be different…

More successful, to these ears at least, is the final third of the compilation in which focus shifts towards a more introspective sound. Indeed, there are some fascinating tracks on here that demand your undivided attention; such as the beautifully skewed Darkstar cover version of Radiohead’s ‘Videotape’ from the ‘In Rainbows’ LP (2008’s album of the year round these parts, fact fans) or Sunken Foal’s ‘Of Low Count and Light Pocket’ with its treated acoustic guitars and swirling quasi-Gothic vocals. I’m also feeling the Floating Points track here ‘Esthian III’; the more astute amongst you will have picked up on the double A side release he recently put out on Planet Mu and this is cut from the same cloth, with its brilliantly loose, shuffling beats and hazy analogue synth interludes.

Overall, as you would expect with a compilation covering such a diverse range of sounds, it is something of a mixed bag. I was hoping to find a few more exclusive tracks on here that I could have slotted into my DJ mixes, but that isn’t really a criticism per se. Whilst you very probably won’t like every single one of the tracks, it works perfectly as a snapshot of where bass music is in 2009 and perhaps even where it is headed in future, and for that reason alone I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.

CD Tracklisting

** denotes exclusive track

01 Mark Pritchard - ?
02 Hudson Mohawke - Spotted
03 Mike Slott - Knock Knock
04 Brackles - LHC
05 Gemmy - Rainbow Road**
06 Untold - Discipline
07 Tranqill - Payroll (Paul White's Clean Dub)
08 Architeq - Sleeping Bear Lament (Take remix)
09 Rustie - Zig-Zag
10 Mono/Poly - Red and Yellow Toys**
11 Hyetal - We Should Start a Fire**
12 Starkey - Gutter Music V.I.P.
13 Darkstar - Videotape**
14 Floatingpoints - Esthian III**
15 Sunken Foal - Of Low Count and Light Pocket**
16 Teebs - WLTA**
17 Nosaj Thing - IOIO
18 Legion of Two - And Now We Want

2 x 12” Tracklisting

a1. Gemmy - Rainbow Road
a2. Architeq - Sleeping Bear Lament (TAKE Remix)
b1. Hyetal - We Should Light A Fire
b2. Teebs - WLTA
c1. Mono/Poly - Red And Yellow Toys
c2. Darkstar - Videotape
d1. Floating Points - Esthian III
d2. Appleblim – Within**

Wild Angels is released on September 14^th 2009 via Planet Mu.

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Mary Anne Hobbs

Interview: Mary Anne Hobbs

Review: Mary Anne Hobbs 'Wild Angels' [Planet Mu]