Luke Vibert 2003

OK, so here's another one from the back of the fridge, in the days before I lost my Mac hard-drive, with about 100 unfinished tracks and dozens of interviews, in 2004.

Luckily backed-up (very much unlike me!), this interview was done in October 2003, on the eve of Luke Vibert's tour of Japan and Australia - via a dodgy phone connection from a telephone box next to rowdy Shin-Koiwa station in Tokyo, through to his possibly more comfy abode in London.

At the time I had no groundline in my apartment, so all my interviews here in Tokyo were done from ratty phone boxes.

Let it be said, here and now, that I am a huge fan of Vibert's, ever since Throbbing Pouch in 1994 on Rising High, and the Redone EP the following year.

And in truth he has a hell of a lot more to answer for. It was under the alias of Wagon Christ (along with other equally vital monikers like Plug, Vibert & Simmons, and later his own name) that Vibert helped to redefine the rules of electronic music in the UK in the early to mid '90s - alongside a bunch of mates that included Richard D. James (a.k.a. Aphex Twin), Tom Jenkinson (Squarepusher), Mike Paradinas (µ-Ziq), Chris Jeffs (Cylob), and the label Rephlex.

Together they assimilated such diverse elements as hip hop beats and drum & bass into the more eccentric take on electronica they produced, and kick-started a virtual insurrection in sound around the world.

HIT HERE TO READ THE Q+A OF THIS DUSTED-DOWN INTERVIEW OVER @ FUN IN THE MURKY