Iñaki Yarritu arrived with his bass guitar slung over his shoulder and dressed in combats and camouflage like a true Dub soldier. He wanted to meet in the Revival collectors heaven that is Music Temple Records in Brixton Market. As we then strolled down Coldharbour Lane in the late summer sunshine towards the Ritzy Cinema he explained that he didn't go there to watch films, only to hear David Katz spin tunes. He's every inch the music fanatic, navigating by his own Reggae landmarks.

 

We settled in the Ritzy's cafe. Once, the very particular, Iñaki had stopped staring suspiciously at his coffee, I asked him how his band Basque Dub Foundation came to be playing with the Heptones this summer.

"We perform live as BDF, playing our own music, but we’re also a backing band for other artists. Over the years we've backed a lot of UK artists, many of the UK Dub - Digital Roots artists like Dub Judah, Tena Stelin, Kenny Knots, Afrikan Simba and Jah Marnyah. We also regularly back foundation artists like Alton Ellis, Earl Sixteen, U Brown and Anthony Johnson. So some people know us more as a backing band. The Belgian promoter who was doing the Heptones European tour approached me to be their backing band. We did ten shows, it was a great experience, mostly festivals. Playing with foundation artists and sharing experiences with them onstage, rehearsals, hotels, flights...is something priceless. Great stories! You learn about how the music was created; the original musicians, the vibe in those days, the arrangements, the actual 'feel'. Being respected as a 'Reggae musician' by these artists is my biggest motivation. I Never thought when I was fifteen that one day I would, not only meet my heroes, but play with them!"

Iñaki speaks perfect English very quickly and with a Spanish accent. He's softly spoken and very focused. You have to concentrate on what he's saying, but if you're at all interested in Reggae, you want to. I asked him how the Heptones shows in Europe differed from their gig in London.

"Here in Brixton the audience knew every song. It was a special reaction because people were hearing music that they remember from their younger days. It's a more mature and knowledgeable audience than in Europe. Over here the Heptones are headliners. Along with other classic artists such as Alton Ellis or Ken Boothe, they're Studio One legends. But at European festivals the current Dancehall artists or the so-called 'New Roots' type are the headliners. When we played Rototom festival, Tarrus Riley was headlining (no disrespect to him but he has only had has a couple of hits), and even Queen Ifrica, who has one hit. The Heptones have about forty massive hit songs. They are giants of Jamaican music, true legends! You talk to Leroy Sibbles and he'll tell you: "I played the bass on 'Satta Massa Gana' and 'Drifter' ...me and Jackie Mittoo did this ..." He is a giant. People like Tarrus Riley know that. Beenie Man was literally on his knees saying "Leroy you are the father... the foundation"."

 

BDF are also known for providing the music on all the releases by French label Heartical. The four rhythms have done surprisingly well, with the most popular cuts selling close to two thousand copies each; an impressive achievement by today's standards. I tried to tell Iñaki how much I like them, but paying him a compliment isn't easy. Like any perfectionist, he is his own toughest critic. My enthusiasm for BDF's new versions of 'Promised Land', 'Real Rock', 'Slaving' and 'Fade Away' didn't make much of an impression. It's not some kind of false modesty, he has genuine disdain for his old work and only has passion for current projects and the improvements he can make.

"Sergio Marigomez (from Heartical Soundsystem in France) had the idea to start a label. He’s got a lot of links with artists from doing dubplates, but he needed somebody to do the rhythms. We've known each other a long time, he's French but with Spanish origin also. He knew that 7” buyers go for the classic rhythms, so he asked me to recut a list of rhythms like: 'Real Rock', 'Promised Land', 'Tonight”, 'Fade Away', 'Stalag', 'Truth & Rights' etc. We recorded them but I really prefer to do originals (even if some artists can be reluctant to voice them). So he launched the label releasing covers first, and he was right. We have put out some good productions, but some are very average. Mind you, our biggest sellers tend to be the ones I don’t rate. Sergio lives in Paris and I'm in London . Sometimes he voices over there or I do it here if the artists are around. He has been to Jamaica a couple of times and voiced about fifty more cuts. Lots of stuff to be released still.”

Now that Heartical has established itself as a label, Iñaki is going to get his wish. The next rhythm will be an original called 'Ministerio Del Dub' or Ministry Of Dub in English. It features an array of big name artists including Alton Ellis, Sugar Minott, Steel Pulse, Michael Rose, Earl Sixteen and one of Iñaki's trademark melodica versions.

"Ministerio" is a good riddim, kind of Roots Radics style. I originally recorded it in 1997 for the first BDF album 'Sustraidun Roots Dub', when I was into all the digital UK stuff, very 90's style. But also I got into using real drums, bass, piano and melodica. I even worked with Augustus Pablo on some recordings. I still use his old Hohner 26 melodica modeI."

The updated 'Ministerio Del Dub' is all live and will be enjoyed by anyone who liked the previous Heartical releases.

"All my productions these days sound like late 70's or early 80's really. The stuff we do is not 'UK Dub' (whatever that means!) anymore. It's more organic, analogue feel, using live instruments and I leave some of the mistakes in as well. I don’t want it to sound too perfect or robotic. I didn't wanna do whatever was current because it doesn’t appeal to me and anyway, in two years it's going to sound dated. I think that if you do something classic it will hopefully sell forever. I might be wrong… My story is unusual because I started to produce music during the digital, post 'Sleng Teng' era, but as time moves forward…I’m going backwards! Towards the era that really made me discover and love Reggae in the 70s as a youth living in the Basque Country. I got bored of programming music in front of the PC and decided to play 'real' instruments onstage and transform BDF into a live band. To me, live musicians playing instruments with a live engineer mixing is the real thing. More challenging and risky, but more exciting."

 

For Iñaki an interview is less about promoting new material and more of an opportunity to share his fascination with the music. He didn't even really need me to ask any questions. Once he'd mentioned UK Dub he immediately leaped aboard another train of thought.

"The first Jah Shaka session I went to was around 1987. What an experience! I was amazed. There was hardly anyone there though, mainly his old time followers. Even fewer white people, and many of them have ended up being producers. I didn't know anybody at the time of course. I couldn't even speak English and you wouldn’t hear other languages there either. These days a lot of Europeans go there. I was into UK Dub big time in the late eighties and early nineties. I used to follow that scene: Shaka, Aba-Shanti, Channel One and Boom Shacka Lacka as well as Mannaseh and Joey Jay on Kiss FM. After listening to stuff like Dread & Fred's 'Warrior Stance' and Dub Judah, I realised that you can do music on a computer. I learned with my little Atari Cubase and started to build riddims. Originally I started BDF as a studio project. It was just myself at first, collaborating with some London UK Roots/Dub artists like Dub Judah, Jerry Lyonz (Jah Shaka’s bass player) and Dougie Wardrop. But I stopped following the UK productions quite a while ago. The sound didn't evolve the way I would have liked. Apart from a few producers I still rate, it's mostly all about that robotic–rave type of feel; flashy delay or the reverb effects, the loud kick drum, simple chords, cliché lyrics. No chord changes or melodies, no human feel. The music is done mostly by producers (sequencers) not by 'real' musicians in the traditional sense; someone that plays an instrument live for two hours onstage. My influences are different. It might be that some of those producers come from Punk Rock; I could never understand the connection with Reggae really. Or some are influenced by House Music and are into those harsh digital sounds. I don’t know. But to me there is no sunshine in that music, it's like the London weather; wet and cold and with that depressing grey sky! I prefer music with 'sunshine' in it! As I said, I’ve done a lot of digital stuff too. I still do some, especially when I build rhythms for other people."

He may have turned his back on the digital UK sound, but that doesn't mean he's influenced by the current Jamaican recordings that use live instruments. Without pausing he turned his uncompromising attention onto the new sound coming from Yard.

"In Jamaica they've lost their old sound. You have either hardcore Dancehall that doesn't have many melodies or even basslines, or you have productions using real instruments like Morgan Heritage, Beres Hammond and all that so-called 'New Roots' stuff. But they’ve gone digital, they use Pro Tools, and if you record that way it's not going to sound like classic Harry J or Channel One. Technology has changed, they record direct into the computer and they don't record onto tape anymore. Even some mixing desks are digital with digital effects as well. They don't tune the drums like they used to do and they use modern instruments. They don't use things like the classic flat strings that I still use on my bass to get that heavy vintage sound. A lot of the equipment used in the 70's and 80's, when the records were punchier, has disappeared. Every studio in the 70's had its own sound: Randy’s, Dynamic, Channel One, Black Ark. Personally I like the old stuff. Analogue sounds different, there's no question about that. The way the Revolutionaries or Roots Radics used to record, everything was up so high it went into the red. When that happens on tape it gives a kind of natural analogue compression. It makes it sound really fat. With digital, once you go to a certain point it creates noise. Digital is too perfect. You don't get that 'nearly distortion' that is on the old Reggae records. It was very unique to classic Reggae. In the 70's and 80's the music produced in JA and UK was raw but very 'musical', recorded in analogue with a human touch. Nowadays JA productions are musical but not raw enough. UK digital Dub is heavy, but not musical enough in my opinion. Of course, occasionally I hear stuff that I like, but not that often."

He's convinced that its not just the changes in technology that are responsible for the different sound; its also a matter of taste.

"Nearly everything they're doing in Jamaica now sounds like a Pop record. They tune the drums like Elton John or Beyoncé; that kind of 'clean' sound with lots of harmonics, there's no difference. It's lighter than it used to be. The new musicians in Jamaica are younger and they started to play after the Roots Radics period, during the digital era. So they have a completely different take on music, especially in production. Technically the musicians in Jamaica nowadays are very good, much better than in the seventies, but they don't have the same feel. When we tour, we share the stage with the top Jamaican bands. Its ironic, some Jamaican musicians play R&B and Hip Hop during their sound check, while we play classic King Tubbys, Yabby U and Augustus Pablo riddims to get the balanced sound on the monitors. BDF played a show with Buju Banton and he had Lenky on keyboards; the one who built the 'Diwali' riddim. He's a young guy and a brilliant musician. On his i-pod it was pure American R&B and Pop music. So he wants his productions to sound like what he's listening to. They definitively know what they are doing, but it doesn’t appeal to me."

 

All Iñaki's opinions are delivered with an effortless conviction. He needs no agreement or verification from anyone else. He's an unashamed purist and believes that its only by being an uncompromising obsessive that he has been able to reach a position that allows him to work with his heroes and do what he loves.

"I come from Bilbao where there was nobody into Reggae. Is not a big city like Barcelona which had an English community where you would know somebody who had Reggae records. The only English magazine I could see was the NME. It's a Rock magazine, but Penny Reel used to write a section called 'Observer Station'. I used to take a pen and write down every name he mentioned. We didn't have any shops in Spain. But I started to order from London. Then I did radio for five years. Later I started promoting Reggae shows with all the big artists: Burning Spear, Abyssinians, Radics, Augustus Pablo, Yabby U, Mighty Diamonds, Alton Ellis, Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs and loads more. That’s how I started to meet my musical heroes."

Being a Reggae obsessive in Spain during the late seventies and early eighties was hard work.

"For us over there, London was the capital for Reggae, the Reggae paradise! I used to come here because of the music. When you are in London you have access to the music man! When I came here I thought "I can go to Dub Vendor any day I want!" Before that it used to be once a year, saving money when I was a student. It's funny because I've met people from Bilbao who've discovered Reggae two or three years ago. They use the internet and they download. They have the same knowledge it took me fifteen years to get. For me it was a huge struggle. People in London would never experience that. They have the language and the records, even the artists down the road. It's no big effort being informed here."

Reggae music is phenomenally popular in Europe now. The British market is tiny in comparison and Iñaki should be regarded as something of a pioneer. He would still prefer for BDF to be seen as a British band though.

"Because Heartical is from Paris, some press have thought that BDF is a French band. But I consider it a London band, even if some of us weren’t born here. I actually started to play here. In England we are considered a foreign band even though I've been living here for twenty years and most of the band live here. When we play in Spain we're also seen as a foreign band. I'm a foreigner everywhere I go!"

Surely it doesn't matter where you come from, you can be considered British if you win world boxing titles, gold medals, test matches or do anything else that we can all feel proud of. You're only a foreigner again if you mess up. So on that basis Iñaki doesn't need to worry. He's one of us.

 

September 2008

 

BDF Myspace: www.myspace.com/bdfbasquedubfoundation

Iñaki photographed by: www.anvissvisualfishfood.be