Features

Naphta

Dublin born and bred Naphta has been DJing jungle since '94. He became the first resident DJ, alongside Rohan, at the Bassbin club nights in Dublin, which started in '96. He started producing around '99, and had a couple of releases on Bassbin. He released the Soundclash 12" on Fanu's Lightless label in 2007, followed by two albums on The Fear, an Irish electronic label: Grande Illusions - a free digital-only album that got 10,000+ downloads, plus a CD album called Long Time Burning - which got a lot of positive press and has just been reissued.

His latest album is Democracy.Now is something different, a downtempo impressionistic hour-long piece that draws upon received sound from forty years of war, recycling and re-contextualising audio culled from films, documentaries and video uploads into a rhythmically and atmospherically engaging trip; one that veers from the darkly humorous, to the simply dark.

Tell us more about the concept behind Democracy.Now...
Watching the unfolding mess in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the increased violence in Gaza and Lebanon, made me angry. Jungle / drum & bass was the only music I'd ever made, but it didn't seem to allow me any room to express my reaction to those events. So I began to produce material at other tempos, giving more space to longer vocal samples, and trying to create beats or backdrops that seemed to enhance or compliment the vocals in some way. I eventually sewed these together to produce an hour-long piece.

What's the thought process behind the title?
The more I read about the war in Iraq, the more I kept going back to the war in Vietnam, so the movie 'Apocalypse Now' was an unescapable influence. One of its original screenwriters was John Milius, a right-wing pro-war armchair general who later directed the laughable Brat Pack war movie Red Dawn, along with Conan The Barbarian (which I must say I still rather like!). Apparently he came up with the title for the movie as a riposte to the hippies demand for "Nirvana Now!"

Later, during the dark days of post-invasion Iraq, I discovered the independent news channel Democracy Now! online. It was a great alternative to the chest-thumping crap coming out of regular TV news in Ireland and the UK (never mind the likes of Fox in the US). The title stuck with me. I guess I figured it could be read either as a demand... or as a comment on the reality of what we call "democracy" today i.e. this is what it REALLY looks like right now. I also saw a great film called 'Paradise Now' about Palestinian suicide bombers, but that's a whole other story...

What did you set out to achieve with it?
To express my feelings about those wars - not just my anger at the political manipulation and lies that brought them about - but also to say something about our relationship with violence, and our attraction to it. And also to give people an opportunity to hear these amazing vocals that I'd found.

Where did you source the vocals samples from and how long did this process take?
Films, documentaries, video diary uploads, jihadi propaganda, US army propaganda - all sorts of stuff. I looked at as much as I could find on Iraq and Vietnam especially - whether I agreed with the opinions expressed in them or not. That was an ongoing process throughout the making of the album, which took a little over two years. I had to wade through a LOT in order to find some gems.

Was it designed to be listened to from start to finish in one go and be an 'experience'?
Definitely. In fact, it could have been far longer but I edited it down to an hour! Even then I was worried that no-one would ever have the time or patience to sit through it for that long - we all have such short attention spans these days. So I was pleasantly surprised at the launch party to see a sold-out crowd stay for the whole thing, just listening, for an hour. There was a pretty lively Q&A session afterwards too, which was great!

I should add that I also worked carefully to shape each side of the double-vinyl, so that they work as 15-minute pieces. So I hope that it can be listened to either way.

How does working on albums compare with of singles? Any preferences?
Because of my DJing background, I tend to think of singles as DJ tools. An album allows a lot more room for maneouvre.

It's only released as double-vinyl, why is this?
As soon as you put your music out digitally, it might as well be free - everyone knows that. Then it's all over the place, available everywhere, and so people come to value it less. It's sad, but true - in my opinion. So, making it a limited physical release offers people a different experience - plus it allows for proper artwork to accompany the presentation, which was always important to me.

What's the next challenge for you?
A possible sequel to this album, but I dunno... the idea I have for it might be a bit too out there to work, so I'll have to see! Also, hopefully, some more new jungle. Who knows?!

What else have you been working on recently?
The debut 12" on a new jungle / dubstep label, Ruff Revival, has just dropped. It features a new tune from me called Fully Loaded and a remix of my tune Soundclash 1 by Ghost, aka the legendary El-B - which is going down really well. Grievous Angel also recently put out a great remix of Soundclash 1 on the Keysound label, so props to him for that!

Anything else you want to tell us about?
Yes. If you're interested in war, watch the documentaries Hearts and Minds and Winter Soldier, both recently reissued. They're amazing!

Also, a big thanks to D1 Recordings for putting out this album. Eamonn, who runs the label, comes from the old skool Detroit techno tradition; I recently heard how he was pleased to have finally snared "one of them junglists" for his label ha ha ha!

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