Samurai Chord (From Oxford Mail)

Samurai Chord

6:00pm Thursday 29th July 2010 in

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TIM HUGHES talks to former PIL bassist Jah Wobble about his foray into the world of Japanese music.

PUNK-dub maverick Jah Wobble is nothing if not eclectic.

In a career spanning three decades, Cockney John Wardle has earned a place in the hearts of fans of rock and reggae.

A former bass player with Public Image Limited alongside Jonny ‘Rotten’ Lydon, he follows hot on the heels of his old band by pitching up at the Oxford O2 Academy on Wednesday – a welcome flash of brilliance in a summer schedule depleted by the seasonal slew of outdoor festivals.

Named ‘Jah Wobble’ by a drunken Sid Vicious, who he met, along with Lydon, at college in 1973, Wobble embarked on a life-long obsession with bass when Vicious loaned him his first guitar; and went on to create an original rock/reggae hybrid all of his own.

Leaving PIL he formed The Human Condition, put together the multi-cultural dub-pop outfit Invaders of the Heart, then, in 1986, after a long battle with drink, he walked away from the music scene to work for London Underground. He eventually returned with a revitalised line-up of the band and, in 1991, landed a Mercury Music Prize nomination.

He has collaborated with everyone from Brian Eno to Massive Attack, Sinead O’Connor, Primal Scream, Natacha Atlas and Bjork, and dabbled in avant-garde jazz-rock, English folk, ambient, dance, and, err... the writings of William Blake. Now, it seems, Wobble is turning Japanese. His latest project, The Nippon Dub Ensemble, follows his first foray into Eastern music two years ago with Chinese Dub – a 22-piece Anglo-Sino aural and visual spectacular, combining Jah-tastic dub with Oriental melodies and instrumentation.

Turning his attentions to the harmonies of the Land of the Rising Sun, his latest work is as authentically Japanese as a Wobble project can be – featuring taiko drums, the wail of the hichiriki flute used in Shinto religious ceremonies, and, of course, Jah’s rumbling bass.

Oh, and for a bit of visual candy, accompanying the musicians will be Takashi Sawano, a notable designer of Japanese gardens and master of ikebana – a flower arranging technique imbued with deep philosophical meaning – who will create floral artwork live on stage.

“For some time I’ve fancied having a crack at merging Japanese music with dub,” explains Jah.

“I was very happy with the Chinese Dub album that I put together a couple of years ago, and was confident that I could do a similar job with Japanese styles.

“It can’t be denied that traditional Japanese music is heavily influenced by Chinese music. However, paradoxically, there is something unique and unmistakable about Japanese music. To an extent this is due to their distinctive chromatic modes, but, above all, the Japanese are incredible reductionists. Somehow they take other cultures’ ‘stuff’ and, in their own respectful way, rationalise it, reduce it, and thereby make it their own. I knew I wanted a selection of folk songs on this album, and I also wanted Japan’s famous taiko drums to be represented. My bass with taiko drums is a marriage made in heaven! “Luckily I know a man called Joji Hirota who has a great knowledge of Japanese culture generally, is an expert taiko drummer and sings like a Japanese Van Morrison. He sent me a selection of old Japanese songs to choose from and I immediately fell in love with one called Kokiriko, which is said to be the oldest known song in Japan.

“To be honest, I wish he hadn’t introduced me to that tune because it drove me nuts; it entered my psyche, and I can’t get it out. I wake up humming it in various keys and tempos, as well as in multitudinous instrumental arrangements, from solo mandolin through to absurd James Last-style string arrangements. It haunts me as I try and sleep.”

The bassist, who titled his autobiography Memoirs of a Geezer, provided the backbone to PIL’s distinctive low-end grooves.

“The bass truly is the king of instruments,” he says. . “Sometimes, as a bassist, I feel like the big geezer at the base of those human pyramids that you get at Chinese and Russian Circuses, taking the weight of the other players, allowing the ones above me in the pyramid to perform their miraculous acrobatics.”

* Jah Wobble and the Nippon Dub Ensemble play the Oxford O2 Academy on Wednesday. Tickets are £12 in advance. Doors open at 7pm. Call the box office on 0844 477 2000.