Produced by Kevorkian, the EP was recorded and mixed at Island’s Fallout Shelter in West London, and was engineered by the great Stephen Street and Paul “Groucho” Smykle. The idea was to get The Edge in the studio with Wobble, who drafted in Czukay and Liebezeit alongside members of his new band, Invaders of The Heart. New York producer Francois Kevorkian had contacted Wobble after a conversation that he had had with Chris Blackwell. Recorded at Can’s Inner Space Studio and mixed by Conny Plank, with “editing and processing by Holger Czukay at his laboratory”, ‘Where’s The Money’ and ‘Full Circle R.P.S.’ picked up on the avant-garde/musique concrète of the Can studio magician’s solo LPs.įrancois Kevorkian presents Jah Wobble, The Edge, Holger Czukay Given what Wobble called a “tough disco sound” by engineer Mark Lusardi, the track (featuring Wobble on Godwin string synth as well as bass) would become an anthem at New York’s underground parties like The Loft. Written by Wobble and Czukay, ‘How Much Are They’ used a sample from two stoned girls who had wandered into Gooseberry Sound Studios in London’s Chinatown. Jah Wobble’s first collaboration outside of PiL was with Can’s avant-pop multi-instrumentalist Holger Czukay and drummer Jaki Liebezeit. Holger Czukay, Jah Wobble, Jaki Liebezeit
We look back at 10 of the highlights of his wide-reaching oeuvre, unmatched in the post-punk canon. Other recent output on his 30 Hertz Records label – including Maghrebi jazz with Moroccan duo MOMO, and the The Nippon Dub Ensemble – show how Wobble continues to push musical boundaries. A long association with Bill Laswell has led to his latest LP Realm of Spells.
#FELT POEM OF THE RIVER RAR SERIES#
The recordings that followed were as eclectic as they were exploratory: from the pioneering fusion of his long running Invaders of the Heart and border-crossing projects like The Chinese Dub Orchestra, to a series of DIY dub and leftfield synth pop releases on his own label Lago Records in the ’80s.Īlong the way he has worked with everyone from Can members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit, to Brian Eno and free jazz saxophonist Evan Parker.
#FELT POEM OF THE RIVER RAR FULL#
It was that bass – pounding, dubwise, and full of soul and suggestion that became what Reynolds called the “heartbeat” of both First Issue and the follow up Metal Box.īut by 1980, frustrated by PiL’s studio inactivity, and rushing with amphetamine-fuelled ideas of his own, Wobble left the group to form the short lived Human Condition. “The thought of riding the power that I heard emanating from the reggae sound system bass bins was utterly enthralling,” he wrote in his autobiography. But Wobble’s music interests went much deeper, absorbing the avant-garde of Karlheinz Stockhausen, and studying the bass playing of reggae titans like Robbie Shakespeare and Aston “Family Man” Barrett. His love of dub and soul music was also nurtured at West End clubs like Crackers, where the soul boy uniform of tapered peg trousers and mohair jumpers crossed over into punk. I felt and perceived it at gut level,” he recalled in his autobiography, Memoirs of a Geezer. “Heavy bass had an effect on me that was essentially visceral. Jah Wobble (born John Wardle in Stepney in 1958), first heard dub at the illicit ‘blues’ parties around his East End neighbourhood. Released in 1978, PiL’s First Issue created an exploratory sound born from a love of experimental music – be it the Krautrock of Can or the dub of King Tubby.
“Wobble’s basslines became the human heartbeat in PiL’s music the rollercoaster carriage that simultaneously cocooned you and transported you through the terror zone,” wrote Simon Reynolds in his post-punk history Rip It UP and Start Again. A genre-defying artist who synthesised dub, funk and psychedelic influences across a range of solo and collaborative albums, many of which remain chronically overlooked.