Luke Vibert, the unsung hero of 90s electronica
This is an appreciation post for Luke Vibert, Aphex Twin's best friend, classmate, and roommate, aka Wagon Christ, Amen Andrews, Kerrier District... etc.
To put it simply, I'd account a good little chunk of Aphex Twin's style to Luke. I had a chat with Luke at one of his shows, and he claimed that Aphex Twin would have never released his stuff at all if he weren't strongly encouraged. Thanks Luke!
This track is the best evidence I have for my claim. It's from 1990, and is an amalgamation of Breakbeat, Dub, Acid, and Ambient.. kind of unheard of for the time, and the quintessential Aphex sound. Those ambient pads sound familiar? The bells? The breaks? I found it on Luke's discogs page. This was definitely shown to Aphex Twin. I've got a prize for whoever can find an earlier and similarly styled track.
This alone is fairly significant I'd say.. I don't mean to discredit Aphex Twin. Even giants are on the shoulders' of giants.
Luke's individual accomplishments are insane though. It's a shame he doesn't get much credit.
Reading this dude's comments referencing break samples that have rarely been sampled, and detailing old underground raves when people used to trade physical records of independent Jungle tracks.. He lives and bleeds electronic music. He's 50, and grew up through the Electro/Hip Hop late 80s scene, and rode through the Jungle, Hardcore, House scenes and more. I really don't think there's anyone else who was so centered to what electronic music became.
His pseudonyms are all case studies on electronic music..
This is a phenomenal case study on UK Garage, titled UK Garave. A liiittle dry for me, but his code switching is nuts. He gets it lol.
This is a study in Jungle, under the pseudonym Amen Andrews. Time warping, snare rolls.. the hallmarks, and spot on.
This is Disco House... Listen to the versatility in sampling, production techniques, and drum patterns--very distinct.
This is Acid Electro.. a blend that's not easy to pull off. Futuristic and clean.
I could go on--his breadth is ridiculous.
Would love to chat about icons. Someone else do a little write-up on electronic music history and @ me!
The only mistake Vibert made was not turning himself into a closed-book legend. His music is amazing and thanks to his branding we know it's firmly made by a wonderful human, not a mysterious and reclusive nostalgia commune (Boards of Canada) or a bonkers cornwallian telling tall tales, living in a bank vault, and driving a tank (Aphex Twin).
IDM/Braindance fans love his work but the conversations never reach the dizzying heights of praise that other artists get and I swear it all comes down to mystery. It's the same with other early IDM acts like Plaid, Squarepusher, Venetian Snares, and Ceephax; all are incredibly talented but just don't capture the imagination... or spawn entire exhaustive fan forums and news sites.
Another Rephlex notable that's still making great albums to less fanfare is Mike Paradinas/μ-Ziq. His recent LPs were some lovely jungle escapism and his Planet Mu record label is proudly picking up the alt-electronica torch that WARP dropped in their branching out to more (genre) diverse artists.
I'm a die-hard Aphex Twin fan and downloaded Luke Vibert's "Lover's Acid" by accident on Soulseek, trying just to get the Analord records. It was good stuff, but I just wanted to jam to vbs.redlof.b and Halibut Acid, so I put him in rhe back of mind. I knew who he was but it wasn't a vibe I wanted at the time.
Then I heard GRIT. This album, wirh a 808, sone airy synth and a 303 just blew my mind, despite not being my first time with acid house/techno. I drove home from work one afternoon laughing my ass off at just how brilliant this album is. I dove through his discography and a few aliases and dude just never misses. He's Aphex Twin if he decided to constrain himself to innovation in conventional music forms.
There are very few artists among his peers that I'd put on his level. He's just in his own category honestly.. Kills it constantly and so fucking versatile. Check the technique, forreal..
As far as consistency throughout the catalog, he's pretty solid, but not on the level of my favorites (Aphex, Zappa, and Sun Ra). Still, generally exceptional quality.
I remember listening to his BBC1 radio mix almost daily. He's such a great musician and thank you for reminding me of him
His mixes are ridiculous.. depends on the setting, but he will seamlessly go through dozens of genres mixing a track a minute.
Disco, boogie, electro, house, deep house, tech house, techno, breakbeat, drum and bass, jungle, hardcore jungle, hardcore, noise..
This is the general progression of his more multi-purpose closing sets.
I wouldn’t say he’s unsung, but with most artists that change their alias, they often shoot themselves in the foot since more casual listeners tend not to delve deep enough to discover the man behind the mask, so to speak.
There's some truth here definitely, but I also think my claims are much more extreme than the praise most people give him. To me, he's in the top 3 of the influential category..