JAH WOBBLE AND THE NIPPON DUB ENSEMBLE

“One of world music’s most intelligently eclectic mavericks” Songlines

“Jah Wobble is one of the great English originals. Thirty years ago, his rumbling bass-playing defined the sound of Public Image Limited, and since then he has used his love for dub reggae to transform anything from avant-garde jazz-rock to English folk songs. Now he has turned his attention to far eastern styles, with startling results… He’s in a class of his own” The Guardian

Following the overwhelming success of his 2008 release, Chinese Dub, Jah Wobble - creatively adventurous music-maker and master of the cross-cultural collaboration – has turned his attention to Japan, releasing a ten track album featuring himself alongside Joji Hirota (vocals, taiko drums), Keiko Kitamura (vocals, shamisen, koto), Clive Bell (shakahatchi) and Robin Thompson (hikaritchi, sho, shamisen) as the Nippon Dub Ensemble; this tour supports the release of that album.

The background to Japanese Dub is best explained by Wobble himself: ‘For some time I’ve fancied having a crack at merging Japanese music with dub. I was very happy with the Chinese Dub album that I put together a couple of years ago, and was confident that I could do a similar job with Japanese styles. It can’t be denied that traditional Japanese music is heavily influenced by Chinese music. However, paradoxically, there is something unique and unmistakable about Japanese music. To an extent this is due to their distinctive chromatic modes, but above all the Japanese are incredible reductionists. Somehow they take other cultures’ ‘stuff,’ and in their own respectful way, rationalise it, reduce it, and thereby make it their own.

I knew I wanted a selection of folk songs on this album, and I also wanted Japan’s famous taiko drums to be represented (my bass with taiko drums is a marriage made in heaven). Luckily I know a man called Joji Hirota who has a great knowledge of Japanese culture generally, is an expert taiko drummer and sings like a Japanese Van Morrison. He sent me a selection of old Japanese songs to chose from and I immediately fell in love with Kokiriko, which is said to be the oldest known song in Japan (to be honest, I wish he hadn’t introduced me to that tune because it drove me nuts. Similar to Phoenix and Dragon on Chinese Dub it entered my psyche, and I can’t get it out. I wake up humming it in various keys and tempos, as well as in multitudinous instrumental arrangements, from solo mandolin through to absurd James Last style string arrangements. It haunts me as I try and sleep. This thousand year old melody tortures me on a daily basis).

An underlying aesthetic principle that governs much Oriental (especially East Asian) music is referred to as ‘jo-ha-kyu’ (or ‘ya yueh’ in Chinese). It is a philosophy, or approach, that concerns movement; in its simplest definition it means beginning, middle and end. It can also be understood as slow, faster (and more complex), and sudden finish. This concept can be seen in all forms of Japanese art and culture, from martial arts to tea ceremonies, and in music and theatre. The biggest challenge to me on both Chinese Dub and Japanese Dub was reconciling jo-ha-kyu with rhythmic groovy dance music. Heavy dub bass is the ideal musical instrument to solve that conundrum. When phrased properly the bass can meld the rigid with flexible, the fixed with the fluid, and the soft with the hard. The bass truly is the king of instruments. Sometimes, as a bassist, I feel like the big geezer at the base of those human pyramids that you get at Chinese and Russian Circuses, taking the weight of the other players, allowing the ones above me in the pyramid to perform their miraculous acrobatics.

I knew that if this was going to be a kosher Japanese record, I had to attempt a track in a kabuki (highly stylized classical Japanese dance-drama) style. This presented a big challenge to me because I found kabuki to be a vast area with many styles existing within its compass. I kept it simple, opting for a classic Japanese chromatic mode, soto (the Japan version of the Chinese ku-chen), played splendidly by Keiko Kitamura, with a hip hop style rhythm and heavy bass underpinning her. Of course, the beat box that I created the beat with is Japanese in manufacture. All my gear at home is Japanese. This album is Japanese in every sense of the word’.

In a career spanning over 30 years, Jah Wobble has shown continued creativity and invention. Born John Wardle in Stepney, East London in 1958, he was given the name Jah Wobble by a drunken Sid Vicious, who he met, along with John Lydon, at Kingsway College in 1973. Wobble’s long-term obsession with dub reggae was fuelled when Vicious loaned him his first bass guitar; embracing both punk and reggae, Wobble created an original rock/reggae hybrid all of his own.

Wobble joined Lydon in Public Image Limited (aka PiL) in the spring of 1978; his distinctive low-end bass providing the backbone, and heartbeat, of the band. The band’s debut album, Public Image Limited - First Issue, included the eponymous top ten hit single. Following the release of PiL’s second album, 1979’s mighty Metal Box, Wobble became increasingly disillusioned by the politics of the band and its reluctance to play live, and left mid-1980. Soon after, Wobble formed The Human Condition, featuring original PiL drummer Jim Walker, also collaborating with Can members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit. In 1983, he put together the multi-cultural dub-pop outfit Invaders of the Heart. Then, in 1986, after a long battle with alcohol, he unexpectedly walked away from the music scene to work for London Underground. He eventually returned with a revitalised line-up of the band, and Rising Above Bedlam, released in 1991, earned him a Mercury Music Prize nomination, chart success and critical acclaim.

Wobble has collaborated with a wide variety of musicians, such as Brian Eno, Massive Attack, Bill Laswell, Harold Budd, Sinead O’Connor, Primal Scream, Natacha Atlas, and Bjork, and his output has spanned a number of musical genres including avant-garde jazz-rock, English folk, multi-cultural fusion, ambient, dance, and the writings of William Blake. In 1997 he set up his own independent label, 30 Hertz Records, and has since released a series of more experimental, non-commercial sounding records.

Throughout July and August 2008, Jah Wobble toured the UK with a new project, Chinese Dub, a 22-piece Anglo-Chinese aural and visual spectacular. Combining his trademark dub with Chinese melodies and instrumentation, the maverick music-maker successfully married East and West sensibilities, proving once again that his creative adventurousness is far removed from others’ world music dilettantism. The tour culminated in an appearance on the BBC Radio 3 stage at WOMAD in what was, for many media commentators and punters alike, the highlight of the festival. Chinese Dub, the resulting studio album, won the Best Cross Cultural Collaboration category in Songlines magazine’s inaugural awards in 2009.

October 2009 saw Wobble’s first release on key reggae/dub re-release label Pressure Sounds, two thunderous new cuts of the Get Carter theme from the seminal 1971 film of the same name. Produced and arranged by Wobble, recorded with tablas, and with additional music by Clive Bell and Sylvia Hallett, this version is a bass-heavy floor-shaker that will seriously disturb your speakers.

http://www.30hertzrecords.com

http://www.myspace.com/jahwobble