Wagon Christ
Ninja Tune
Easygoing, genre-bending U.K. electronic bedroom producer Luke Vibert started performing in '87 with a Beastie Boys-inspired group called The Hate Brothers. But the Cornwall, England native took a sharp detour from his love of hip hop with his first solo creation, a '93 industrial techno LP for Rephlex Records entitled Weirs (recorded as Vibert/Simmonds). Shortly thereafter, his alter ego Wagon Christ was born.
The ostensibly ambient (but actually jumbly) smattering of sounds and beats on Wagon Christ's '94 Risin High Records debut, Phat Lab Nightmare, presaged the more trenchant hip hop and ambient goofings of '95's Throbbing Pouch. At the same time, Vibert began releasing patchwork drum and bass EPs as Plug, culminating in the release of the long-player Drum 'n' Bass for Papa in '96 (Trent Reznor's Nothing Records packaged the LP with the earlier EPs for a U.S. version in '97).
Big Soup, Vibert's first record under his own name, paid close homage to his hip hop roots, adding a downtempo bent in deference to its distributor, Mo Wax Records. Again as Wagon Christ in '98, Vibert issued the exquisite, jazzy-ambient R&B-cum-hip hop LP Tally Ho! on Astralwerks, before collaborating with U.K. pedal steel maestro B.J. Cole on '00s Stop the Panic. In '01 Wagon Christ returned, making his Ninja Tune debut with Musipal, another seemingly uncalculated electro-kitsch stumble through acid fields of feel-good dance. "Receiver" and "Peakission" both feature on said album.
Ryan Chaffee
last updated:
08/13/01
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