The Bar At The End Of The Universe is the setting for Kaho Cheung’s second album as Unkle Ho, according to Cyclic Defrost reviewer Emmy Hennings. It’s a place where Cheung, the erstwhile beatmaker for Australian hip hop coruscaters The Herd, rocks a soundtrack to lazy evenings of cocktail sipping; where mahjong tables are nestled alongside dry martinis, and the walls are lined with portraits of fallen Communist leaders. Holed up in China, Cheung concocted the rollicking blend of Eastern European gypsy jaunts and Arabic harmonies, which gallops headlong into hip hop beats and dancehall riddims. Guest musicians play double bass, clarinet, harp, guzheng, trumpet, flute and electric guitar, filtered through the gritty, heavy prism of dub and folk music. It’s optimistic and inclusive. We cornered our favourite Unkle to question him on some of his most memorable musical moments.
Squarepusher-Music is Rotted One Note (Warp)
This was Squarepusher’ third full-length album, released in 1998. His first two albums showed that he had already mastered the art of acrobatic schizoid electronic music. For this album, Squarepusher ditched all his famed gear and relied soley on live instruments. To get an idea of the sound, imagine cloning four Squarepushers to play bass, drums, guitar and keys, then resurrect Miles Davis to conduct them and get Aphex Twin to engineer and record them. The output is a major departure from his other albums, I actually prefer this to the other Squarepusher material. I’m still waiting for the day he loses all his gear in a firestorm and makes Music is Rotted Two Notes!
I had a chance to meet the big man when an early version of The Herd called Dase Team 5000 supported Squarepusher at Frigid’ fifth birthday. Squarepusher apparently had not only a highly developed brain for music, but also a highly developed ego; he didn’ hang out with us peasants backstage. He managed to piss everyone off so much that a certain hairy nosed DJ plucked a fistful of nostril hairs and inserted them into the chocolate éclairs that Squarepusher had requested for his rider. Suffice to say, the éclairs and nostril hairs were nowhere to be seen after the gig.
Coldcut – 70 Minutes of Madness (Journeys by DJ )
The definitive DJ mix album, it still holds up after all these years. My only copy of this album was on a good ol’ cassette. I caned this tape so much that I started hearing the other side in reverse. I also remember watching Plan 9 from Outer Space in the cinema and thinking that this was going to be a great movie, as I realised Coldcut had sampled the intro for this album. The movie still sucked.
As part of the Electrofringe Festival in 1998, Coldcut did a live internet cross from England and performed a DJ/Video set. Because internet speeds were very slow back then, Dase Team 5000 was asked to play music whenever the connection dropped out. We had three desktop computers (this was when laptops were very expensive), with the Coldcut visuals projected behind us. I remember Traksewt having major problems with his computer that night. The audience was probably wondering why he was staring so intently into his monitor, little did they know that he was doing a complete reinstall of Windows while onstage.
Black Sabbath – Greatest Hits (Griffin)
Like any self-respecting 17-year-old with long hair, I went through a heavy metal stage. I would bang my head earnestly to Metallica, Megadeth and Kyuss. After going to metal gigs I would rate how good they were depending on how sore my neck was the next day.
A friend of mine demanded that I get schooled by the originators, so he copied Black Sabbath’s Greatest Hits onto cassette for me. Though famous for their heavy riff lined tracks such as ‘Paranoid’ and ‘War Pigs’, my favourite Sabbath song is ‘Planet Caravan’. This is an almost acoustic ballad with a morphine preset on Ozzie Osbourne’ vocals and delicate hand drumming from Bob Ward. Yes, bongos in a metal track, that is how heavy Black Sabbath are.
A few years later I had this album up very loud in the car, singing my guts out to “Sweat Leaf’, I didn’ realize the traffic had banked up in front, I then proceeded to ram the car in front of me. That accident was 10 years ago, but whenever I hear Black Sabbath now I always wipe 10km off.
Ida Kelarova – Old Gypsy Songs (self-released)
My first foray into Romany music; Ida is a legendary singer from the Czech Republic. She identifies herself as half Czech and half Romany, and is very active in promoting Romany culture. Although she struggled with her Gypsy heritage in her early years, the death of her Romany musician father was a major turning point in accepting her heritage. She never learnt to speak the Romany language, as her grandparents thought that her Romany blood was a liability. Nowadays, Ida is a passionate voice for her people, from organising the annual Gypsy Festival in the Czech Republic to performing traditional gypsy songs all over the world.
I lived in the Czech Republic for three months and saw some great Romany music that inspired me to buy this album. Although I don’ understand the lyrics to the songs, the music makes you feel immediate empathy for the injustices that Romany people have suffered. However, this tone is always contrasted by the frantic celebratory mood that is still able to be conveyed, despite the odds. I also bought another album by an equally legendary Czech singer called Iva Bittova and found out months later that they are in fact sisters.
King Tubby – Dub Explosion (Roots)
King Tubby would be my favourite, out of all the other famous dub producers. He started out in the 60s as a recording engineer, but ended up amassing an uncountable number of releases by the time of he died in 1989. Many people regard Osbourne “King Tubby’ Ruddock as the inventor of the remix, as he pioneered the art of using individual tracks of songs and manipulated them into an unrecognisable form to the original. A keen audio scientist, he wired up his own ground breaking mixing desks and delay units to achieve sounds that nobody could emulate. Such mechanical ability is a good example of how genres often originated from new technology.
Certain tracks on Dub Explosion like ‘Love of The Jah Jah’ and ‘Black Out’s make me uncontrollably squint my face along to King Tubby’ skanks and homemade delays. I remember making a dub compilation with some of these songs for my girlfriend as she was not convinced about the merits of dub. She was also concerned that I was not a lover of ska. She finally succumbed to the dub, but I’ve held firm on the ska.
C.W. Stoneking – King Hokum (Low Transit Industries)
I had just arrived back from China after living there for six months, a few of my friends were raving on about this Australian blues guy that sounded like the albino brother of Mississippi blues legend Robert Johnson. I was intrigued as I have a special place in my heart for early blues and jazz. I couldn’ remember his name though, something like C.L. Stonehenge, W.C. Kingston or C.L. Smoothking. I went to a friend’ place for dinner and he had the elusive album I was after, however the CD was missing from the case. By this stage I was gagging to hear the damn album.
When I finally got it a week later, I had to stop myself from listening again straight away. You know that feeling when you hear an album so great, you have to restrain yourself from over playing it, otherwise you risk getting sick of the album too quickly.
Best songs are ‘Don’t Go Dandin Down the Darktown Strutter’s Ball’ and ‘Handyman Blues’, the latter about Stoneking’ experience as a tradesperson in an isolated country town. Equal to the blues mastery on this record is the skillful production by J.Walker in making this release sound like an authentic Delta blues record minus the scratches.
Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen – Journey Through The Land Of Shadows (self-released)
I remember being blown away by this gypsy group at the Cockatoo Island Festival. Mikelangelo spoke with a heavy Balkan accent, yet his humour was very familiar. I was convinced such distinguished musicians must have traveled from faraway places in order to perform in Australia. In fact they caught the local ferry just like the rest of us and Mikelangelo even went to uni with a friend of mine.
I eventually met Mikelangelo at a party and got to hear his Australian accent. I remember giving him a CD-R copy of my first album, Roads to Roma, in return he generously gave me a proper copy of his. I felt quite foolish and thought such a dignified man would not bother to listen to a CD-R of ripped-off gypsy beats from some guy in an Australian hip hop group. To my delight he got in contact and gave the album the thumbs up.
Unkle Ho’s Circus Maximus is available from Elefant Traks/Inertia.
