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Bibio

Stephen, the man behind the music, tells us about five tracks that are really very important to him indeed.

Bibio released his album ‘Ambivalence Avenue’ this week (22nd June), the first for his new label Warp and his sixth release overall.

Stephen Wilkinson, the man behind the music, tells us about five tracks and albums that are really very important to him indeed, most of which he discovered during his years at university.

Boards Of Canada - Turquoise Hexagon Sun

I heard bits of the album 'Music Has The Right To Children' in my friend's halls of residence in North London during my first year of uni in 1999. It wasn't until going back to Wolverhampton for the Christmas break and wanting some new music to listen to that this album hit me. I remember going in HMV and seeing 'MHTRTC' on the shelf, with its faded turquoise stretched and scratched 70s photograph of a family with mountains in the background, and their faces blanked out. I bought the album thinking it was just going to be a bit of pleasant listening. I went back to my Mom's and got my headphones on. When I hit this track, something peculiar happened. It brought back an almost forgotten memory of splashing about in a Welsh river as a little kid, I was with my brother and sister and other kids, some were neighbours from home, some were kids we met on the campsite. It was halcyon. I even remember the T-Shirt I was wearing! It was yellow with a glitter gold tiger on it, I remember seeing some of the glitter wash off in the river. So for a piece of music to bring back a memory like that... well, it meant that I hadn't bought just a CD, but some kind of portal. The album is more magical and deep than meets the eye. Now, the wobbly murky voices in the track make me think of being in a garden party as a kid, and then coming into the house to get a drink, but the outdoor sun has made my eyes see the dark interior of the house as a kind of green murkiness with silhouettes of 'grown-ups' leaning against walls chatting. It's an instrumental album, but says more than any vocal album I've heard.

My Bloody Valentine - To Here Knows When

Again, another life-changing album. This wasn't an album I just got into and liked, it was an album I obsessed about. I remember downloading a few tracks off napster back in 2000/2001 and wanted to check out what was a highly regarded album. I remember at first not really clicking with it, I listened to mainly electronic music at the time and hadn't listened to 'distorted guitars' since my rock-based youth. But I also had faith that there was something else going on here. Then, I clicked. I got sucked in. It's the murkiness and the harmonies man! The hidden vocals and the chords are just so lush and subtle. That night, before I went on a mission to buy it, I listened to 'To Here Knows When' three times in a row before I turned off my Mini Disc recorder and tried to sleep. The next day, the Picadilly line was screwed, so I had to go on this mission of buses and alternative tubes to get to a shop to buy it, I couldn't wait, I dedicated my day to getting a copy of it... oh the beauty of a sparse university timetable! Later that day I sent my mate back in Wolves a text (he was a fellow Boards of Canada obsessor) saying "A new era has begun". When I sent him a mini disc copy, I just waited for the phone call back. Indeed, it was a new era.

The Sea And Cake - All The Photos

Oh man. When this tune kicks in about 1:27... such ear candy! My mate was trying to get me into this album 'Oui' by Sea and Cake back in 2001. As he was playing me some of his favourite selections from the album, his Mom phoned. I was trying to listen to the track, he was desperate for me to hear particular parts and wait for my reaction, so he just kind of did that thing you do on the phone when you're disinterested "Yeah... hmmm, yeah..." and then this track kicked in at 1:27 and he just looked at me, still on the phone to his Mom, scrunched his face up in that way men do when they approve of something, one finger rhythmically pointing to the speaker and my head just nodded uncontrollably, it may have been bad timing for his Mom to phone but it didn't matter, besides, his indifference to the phone conversation made me laugh at the time. That was another album sold to me there and then. And it's one of the most consistently solid albums I've ever heard. It's loud, juicy, clean, tight and fresh as fuck. A really creamy album. It became the soundtrack to summers ever after. Brings back memories of traveling to the coast in Wales. Yum.

Daft Punk - High Fidelity

Going back further still to about 1998. I was at college doing Art and Design. A mate of mine told me to check out Daft Punk, I saw the name floating about but naively had no idea what it was gonna sound like, certainly not French House music. I was pretty skint at the time, a full time student with a part time weekend bar job earning £3.60 an hour. So I went to Wolves library and the only format they had it on was cassette. So I got it out for about 50p. I fell in love with it, and I'd never heard anything quite like it. The track 'High Fidelity' was kind of a reinforcement of my obsession with nonsensical chopped up vocal samples. I can't explain why I'm a sucker for that, but this track is still one of the finest examples of it. J Dilla might be famous for it now, and Madlib to a certain degree, but check this gem out by Daft Punk. It's such an analogue album too, not loud a din like modern stuff, eg. Justice... This album is raw, made of short samples, punchy 909 beats and just super tasteful hooks. Nobody does it like Daft Punk, I still think this is their finest album too.

Steve Reich - Electric Counterpoint

About half way through my college course in 1999, I was inspired to do a conceptual project based on phasing, it came to me while waiting for a train and seeing a flashing light going in and out of time with the music I was listening to, moments of perfect synchronicity and then slipping back out. I discussed my interest with my tutor, who was a very talented painter and music enthusiast. He asked me if I had heard of Steve Reich. Anyone who knows Steve Reich will know the connection here. I hadn't. My tutor made me a mix tape of various minimalist artists and one thing on the tape was Steve Reich's electric counterpoint. Little did my tutor know at the time that he was about to change the direction of my life. This was the most influential piece to date. It made me approach the guitar completely differently and got me out of those typical guitarist ruts of strumming chords and playing minor pentatonic 'blues scales'. This was more like electronic music, or sequencing. So then I started trying to learn parts of the piece. My girlfriend and my dad put together and bought me a little sampler for Christmas. Samplers were still very expensive at the time and I couldn't afford a computer, besides computers were far less powerful back then. This little sampler allowed me to loop 4 different parts at any one time... pretty lo-fi, but it was a revolution for me. What started out as lo-fi remixes or cover versions of 'Electric Counterpoint' turned into me discovering my own sound, and then later, bibio was born. I think my album 'Hand Cranked' had the most minimalist approach to composing out of all of my released work, many of the tracks on that album are pure guitar counterpoint tracks, but using acoustic guitar rather than electric, and going for a lo-fi wobbly aesthetic rather than a glossy 80s aesthetic like Steve Reich's masterpiece. I combined the minimalist approach inspired by Steve Reich with my other influences of old wildlife documentaries and old kids' programmes I grew up with like Bagpuss and Trumpton. The result sounded like broken music boxes and rusty clockwork toys.