Run for Cover, He's Gonna Bomb The Bass

“He just showed up with Damien Hirst of all people, they both started dancing around the studio for a bit then buggered off.” Thus Tim Simenon describes his first and only meeting with David Bowie, whose brooding track The Heart’s Filthy Lesson (as featured in the closing titles of David Fincher’s 1995 film Seven) the Londoner was remixing at the time. As one of the more successful producers of the nineties, Simenon gained recognition working not only with Bowie, but Bjork, Gavin Friday, Sinead O’Connor, Neneh Cherry and Depeche Mode among others. On this occasion however, he is speaking to The Skinny under the guise of his umbrella title Bomb The Bass, having just released his first full new album (Future Chaos) for thirteen years.

In the latter part of the 80s a musical revolution was taking shape. Acid house was generating serious momentum and in February of 1988 a track titled Beat Dis landed at number two in the UK charts. Comprised of a simple bass line and drum track, over which were layered a reputed 72 different samples from areas as diverse as hip-hop, funk, classical and dialogue from TV shows, it proved a revelation. Bomb The Bass were rightly cast as pioneers driving DJ culture to the forefront of public perception. Simenon rode the crest of that wave throughout the first half of the nineties up until the release of 1995 album Clear. In 1997, suffering from mental and physical exhaustion, Simenon decided to take a break from the industry. Emerging refreshed in 1998, he began to conceive of Future Chaos…

…Yes, that’s right…1998! The clever album favourably reviewed by The Skinny last month began its gestation a whole decade ago! So, Tim, what was that all about? “It’s not like it was ever my intention to take ten years,” he admits rather sheepishly. “This is probably the fourth version. Believe me, it’s been a fucking struggle. I suppose at one point I was trying to reinvent the wheel and the record found itself becoming very polished. It became a science, a maths project where everything was in its right place. It lacked for soul and spirit. When I decided I wanted chaos to be a theme, to me that meant involving an element of randomness. I’d somehow managed to iron out all the randomness, so it took me a while to rework it to this version.”

Simenon is at pains to stress that his current reappearance under the Bomb The Bass moniker is not an attempt at exploiting any potentially lucrative nostalgia trip which may exist. “I’m not too worried that it will be received like that. I’ve made a record which has been quite a personal challenge for me but at the back of my mind I was always confident it would be a work of progress. Finishing it has given an immense feeling of closure.” Future Chaos doffs its hat to vintage sounds, courtesy of his love affair with the minimoog (“a monophonic synth which emulate drums, bass, leadlines, wind instruments, all that kind of stuff really well; it’s just my ideal keyboard really”) yet somehow manages to sound thoroughly fresh. In many senses, it is just as innovative as the track he made as a precocious graduate all those years ago.

More than that, he feels, it is an acknowledgement of the diversity of music in general , and how much it makes sense to try and appreciate everything that’s going on. “There’s so much choice now, no matter what genre you’re listening to, be that hip-hop or drum 'n' bass or whatever. I used to go out and the scene would entail having a few b-boys on my right hand side, and pub rockers on my left, but they were all together listening to the same music. Killing Joke would be played one minute, and next would be Afrika Bambaataa. It doesn’t seem to happen like that these days. Each genre has so much going on that you’re more likely to have a night of just, say, grime or d’n’b - which is fine because I’m sure that people like that. Personally I would like to have a bit of variety, because generally that is what I listen to. You can see that from my musical taste and that’s reflected in the new album. I mean you’ve got Mark Lanegan next to Fujiya and Miyagi. And for me a good tune is a good tune regardless of genre.”

For now, Simenon is content to have an album that has been ecstatically received by the critics, but he naturally harbours fears as to whether the public will follow suit. “I’m not going to tour if there’s no desire and people don’t want to see it, but at this moment I feel very inspired and have actually started writing the next album.” So 2018 for the next Bomb The Bass release then? “I hope not (laughs), maybe within the year. But I remember saying the same thing when I started Future Chaos.”