Welcome to My World

"They say that in London you are only ever a few yards away from a rat. Well, on this album you are never too far away from dub (the form of music that I think best symbolises our yearning for the infinite, for what lies beyond the material world). However, 'Welcome to my World' does have some interesting (well to me anyway) other angles. On this album you will hear homage paid (albeit in my own conceited fashion) to some of my musical heroes, such as Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Mohamed Abdel Wahab and Joe Zawinul. You will also hear sonic tribute paid to some of my favourite areas of "my world", not least Andaluca, Ancoats, India, Putney, Brazil, Stockport and the Seven Sisters Road area of Tottenham, all of which resonate throughout these recordings.

I also have a stab at mixing late romantic / early impressionist styles of the late 19th and early 20th century with a dub "foundation". I like the way the late romantic period and early impressionist composers wear their hearts on their musical sleeves in such (at times ludicrously) melodramatic fashion. The strings swell as if the whole orchestra is about to burst into tears out of sympathy with the (highly strung) composer. They flit about between minor and major scales at the drop of the composer's hat. On occasion I quite like that moody complex vibe. And to give it a groove makes it feel complete, in so far as you can then confidently prance around to it. In fact I have now fashioned a number of highly dramatic "dub step" moves which I perform with a haughty melodramatic air around my studio. During those occasions I fancy myself to be a bit of a Mahler, set free in the three dimensional world of Nijinsky (the Russian geezer not the horse). For a sturdily built middle aged man, I move lithely, lightly and really rather elegantly to my own heady musical concoctions.

Additionally, on 'Welcome to my World' I lionise aspects of the sequenced music of the acid house rave period as it progressed into early to mid nineties drum&bass, via the tracks "M25" and "M60". Such an English sub genre, it's not surprising that there is a small nod towards the likes of Vaughan Williams and Elgar at the end of "M25". I just couldn't resist it.

Some of the tracks on 'Welcome to my World' were written immediately after walks. For instance the basis of "Highgate" was written on Hampstead Heath on a battery powered sequencer. It was never an area of London that I knew very well or indeed that I particularly liked. I have always found it to be a rather melancholic place (It's no wonder that the infamous "suicide bridge" exists there). However after writing the track I now feel more connected and sympathetic to that area of London. "Putney" is another track written straight after a walk, along the banks of the Thames, from Richmond (where I ate mussels and chips) to Putney. It's the first time that I have consciously had a go at making sixties flavoured psychedelia (albeit with a dub flavour). I try my best to sing like Tiny Tim on "Putney"."
-JAH WOBBLE