D9: You’ve been DJing/making music for a while, you’ve built up some successful nights and got a nice little label. What made you want to risk your savings, not to mention sanity, and put on a festival?

BLOC: Because festivals are excellent. We went to Exit festival in Serbia (it’s wicked – do it) and realised there wasn’t anything in the UK that ran all night properly and catered for underground dance music. Now there is. Plus, we were unemployed and needed a something to do.

D9: You’ve been to Dedbeat and obviously been inspired by what they’ve achieved, how are you going to set Bloc apart from what’s been done before?

BLOC: In a word, TECHNO. In a few words, we attended every dedbeat and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. Since dedbeat, music has changed a little our lineup reflects this and also how much we particularly like underground dance music in all its forms.

D9: What’s happened to the London electro scene?

BLOC: Well, people still go out dancing. I guess it’s just diversified and got mixed up with all this minimal and dubstep and all that jazz. It’s good news, electro was getting well boring.

D9: Are you worried about going for a mostly electro/electronic focused lineup? Were you tempted to book more dubstep to get the kids down with it?

BLOC: We found it so tempting that we succumbed and booked Digital Mystikz, Loefah, Plastician, MRK1+Virus and Vex’d.

D9: Has being based outside London affected what you do?

BLOC: Yes. It’s the best possible thing for us because we’re totally removed from all the hype that surrounds clubs and music in London. Also, it means we’re just as keen to attract people from other cities – particularly the north of England, the scene’s much bigger there.

D9: Who are you most looking forward to seeing?

BLOC: CJ fucking Bolland, not that we’ll get to see any of it.

D9: Who was the most difficult act to book

BLOC: Ed Chamberlain.

D9: Do you think you’ll make any money from it?

BLOC: That would be nice. Any money is a bonus. A welcome bonus.

D9: Have you got any tips for surviving the festival?

BLOC: Wear a helmet, shin pads, flippers, and armbands. Don’t talk to strangers, carry a personal attack alarm and affix stabilizers firmly to the rear of your bike. Be safe, be on the scene and know your enemy. Attack is the best form of defence and to claim you were drunk at the time is no defence whatsoever, as any judge will tell you. Most importantly try not to be kidnapped and taken to a prisoner of war camp. If in doubt, bring a beekeepers outfit for the whole weekend just to be on the safe side.

D9: What have you been listing to and playing out lately?

BLOC: At the moment I’m listening to ‘Bridge Over troubled water’ by Simon and Garfunkel. I think it’s so nice how those guys managed to patch things up. Drop that badboy at any party and I guarantee you will be asked to leave. Mental shit. Also, we’ve been listening to The Police and Klaus Nomi.

D9: What’s coming up on Baselogic records?

BLOC: Ed Chamberlain: Fixxy EP2 on Jan 15 07. It’s not rubbish, honest.

D9: Finally, list 10 good things about Norfolk!

BLOC:

1. Our Caravan/office
2. Abbot Ale
3. Outdoor raves
4. Christmas (Jesus is from Norwich)
5. The food, particularly the pheasant
6. Drink driving
7. The hunt
8. The sea
9. The BLOC weekend
10. Horatio Nelson

Posted by %%author%% for DELTA 9, © 2006
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D9: So how’s the tour going?

BB: Really well actually. It’s been a bit gruelling because we’ve had a pretty hectic schedule, but the turnout’s been really good, the shows have been great and the band’s tighter than ever. So yeah, it’s been good. No complaints.

D9: I heard something about it being dubbed the ‘IBS tour’…

BB: (laughs) Yeah, yeah. It started off as the IBS tour, yeah. There was a lot of toilet time, a lot of time spent worshipping the porcelain gods. But we’re all good now, we’re adjusted and our intestines are completely fucked up like all yours. (laughs)

D9: So tell me about the collaboration with Gruff Rhys on the album.

BB: Well the way that we came into contact was, the Super Furry Animals had asked me to open up for them on their Phantom Power tour and so I was on tour with them for that. It was just myself doing a solo show and my video guy so we were able to be on the tour bus with those guys. We got to be pretty good friends, spent a lot of time together and whatnot with them.

D9: They seem like they’d be fun to hang out with.

BB: They were, yeah, it was the first like, sort of, for want of a better term ‘Rock Star’ tour that I’ve ever been on. You know, having porn stars on the bus and drugs, you know what I mean the whole thing. Usually it’s pretty boring, like vegans going ‘oh, we’ve got to drink more water’. They weren’t like that so it was really fun. Definitely proper rock and roll. So we did the tour, and we got to talking about doing a project together at that time. Then they asked me to do a remix, and I was like ‘Yeah, I’d love to do a remix. Why don’t we swap – you do vocals on my record and I’ll do a remix for the Super Furry Animals.’ So they did a short tour for Phantom Phorce, the remix record, and it ended in Los Angeles. They stuck around for a few days and we recorded the song at that time.

D9: It’s a great vocal sound, the harmonies are fantastic.

BB: Yeah, he’s great. It was amazing to see him in the studio, and watch him just nail the harmonies. It wasn’t even like ‘Oh, just let me try that over.’ It was just like ‘aaaaah’ and it was there.

D9: So he’s joining you on stage tomorrow, how are you going to pull it off live?

BB: Well he’s bringing an eight piece choir with him (laughs). Some of those harmonies are anywhere from eight to twelve vocals. He’s been rehearsing with this choir. So yeah, there’ll be thirteen of us on stage for that one song.

D9: Doseone is notably absent from the new album. What happened there?

BB: Well you know, it’s just that he was busy working on a lot of stuff and I was busy working on my thing and we had done a lot of stuff. We just figured it was time to do our own thing for a while, take our own paths and keep in touch and then eventually get back together and do some stuff. You know, I mean I’m sure he was the same, I didn’t want it to always be like ‘Boom Bip and Doseone’. But yeah, I love working with him, he’s one of my best friends. It’s great to work with him and we will in the future, but for now we’ll just do our own things. He’s doing his own thing with Subtle, which I think is like the best stuff he’s ever done.

D9: What about the collaboration with Nina Nastasia?

BB: With her, it was more a case of me being a fan of hers and just contacting her out of the blue and asking her to be part of my record. Really, I just called her out of the blue and said ‘Hey listen, you probably don’t know what I do but I’d love to work with you.’ The idea was a bit daunting for us both at first because she comes from a very singer-songwriter folky background and I have more of an electronic background. Those things can work, and have in the past, but we just weren’t sure if it would work. And we were throwing around different ideas and taking different approaches to working on the song. Initially I had made a full track for her to write to and sent her this track, and she was having trouble writing to it because she’s just used to her way and her guitar – a very pure form of songwriting. So we decided to do it in reverse where she sent me the lyrics and then I built up a track around that. And I built up this track with guitars, bass, harpsichord and strings and like all this crap around it, and it didn’t sound right. It didn’t sound like me, it didn’t sound like her. It sounded too big and way too overworked. I basically came to the realisation that her voice needs to be the forefront, the focal point that you’re really listening to and everything else should just compliment what she’s doing. I started stripping everything back and throwing in heavy reverse reverbs and just basically making this sort of drony mess of all the parts that I had recorded. I basically just filtered everything out and mashed it up into the thing that it is. And then her vocals popped out, it seemed to work. Simplicity is best with her I think because you’ve got to listen to her lyrics and you don’t want to distract from that.

D9: What can we expect from the show tonight?

BB: Oh, it’s going to be great. I mean Caribou is amazing live, we just did our first show together last night. It was their first time actually performing new material and they were really, really solid. Really tight. They’re going to be amazing. Like I said, my band is tighter than ever. It should be good, a nice energetic evening. I wouldn’t expect anything laid back, it’s a very high energy show. People will be surprised at what I’m doing I think, although they won’t be too surprised if they’re familiar with Circle and the new record. Some of the studio stuff where I used programmed drums has a live kit, it’s a bit harder and makes things a bit rocky. It’s fun, it works well, we’re having fun doing it.

D9: Last time I saw you live was at the Glade stage in Glastonbury a couple of years ago.

BB: Oh, that was terrible! You know, they didn’t have half the kit that I required. They didn’t have a guitar there, several other things that I needed they just didn’t have. I was reaching and grabbing, didn’t have the right cables… And John Peel was front and centre, sitting right there at the front of the stage. I was just like ‘Oh my God, no! no!’ That was a bit nervewracking!

D9: So what are your plans for Boom Bip at the moment?

BB: Well, in the near future I’m going to be doing a lot of touring. We’ve got seven or eight more dates in France and the UK. I head back to Los Angeles, have two days off. Then we’re playing the Coachella festival. Then we have to leave immediately, fly to the East coast and start a full month of a US tour. So that’s the very near future, doing a lot of shows. And then June and July I’m planning on taking off and working on and EP that I’ve started. I’ll probably finish the EP in those two months, then in August I’m coming back over here for festivals.

D9: Well, thanks for your time and I’ll see you at the show.

BB: Wonderful, thanks for having me.

Interview by Nick Davis.

Posted by %%author%% for DELTA 9, © 2005
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