Who is this man that cuts, produces & mixes these
heavy
Digital Dub rhythms for massive Sound Systems?
How did it all start?
I am born in Purmerend and raised in Haarlem. After that I moved to Amsterdam. The music
and love for bass started like everybody else I assume; my brother had some vinyl from Bob
Marley, UB40, Peter Tosh and others that I really enjoyed. From there, other sounds came to
ear like dubs from King Tubby, Lee Perry, Jamaican Style. Listening together with friends and
of course with something nice to ‘smoke’, it was kind of magic. I started to collect these sounds
and rhythms and felt that I could try to play a style too.
Somewhere around 1986, I passed by a shop and bought myself a Casio keyboard, it was good
fun to play along with dub. Soon after that I purchased a Roland E5, and an 8 track mixer and
my first echo/delay, the Rockman Stereo Echo…my voyage with music started this way. Today I
have replaced all equipment, but my Echo is still there…in all of my sounds.
I tried to work with bands and had my own band but that was really hard work. I felt it never
sounded exactly how I wanted. Around this time the computers came like Atari and others. I
got one myself and it gave me the possibility to lead the tracks with MIDI to arrange the synths,
etc. This was amazing. From then on, I was able to do everything myself. I like it like that!
We speak about the early nineties, what sounds
influenced you around that time and where did they
bring you?
It was the UK dub in combination with Jamaican Dub that had a big influence on the sound I
liked. We talk about Jah Shaka, , Jah Tubby’s, Channel One Sound System, Adrian Sherwood,
Mad Professor, Dub Syndicate Band to mention a few. They laid out the path of dub evolution
from the late 70’s combining Jamaican Reggae based music with the new digital equipment.
Professional equipment was highly expensive at that time, so you had to mix it up with gear like
the Roland TR-808 or TB-303. They were easy to get and affordable in the early 80’s.
That is how Jah Warrior, Disciples, Conscious Sounds, Nick Manasseh started their sound, they
were the real pioneers of that style.
Around the same time I attended the King Shiloh sessions in the early 90’s in Amsterdam, when
they didn’t even have their own sound system. I remember it was once a month but Dancehall
was really hot at the time with Gregory Isaacs’ new hits. I came there mainly to listen to Roots
& Reggae Culture. At one particular time, I gave a DAT recording to Neil from King Shiloh. He
called me a few days later saying; “I have two singers here maybe we could pass by and record?”
I immediately laid down two rhythms for them, they weren’t anything special. One of them was
a track called ‘Red Light’ with Idren Natural, released on 10” vinyl. It kind of started from there.