Asian Dub Foundation .......Really Saying Something!

Dance music journalism sometimes consists of attempting to elicit a response from people whose music you admire, but who are so stoned they would hardly recognise their mother if she came into the room. Then the writer goes home and strings together the gathered grunts and monosyllables into a coherent indicator of the artists talent. Such is not the case with Asian Dub Foundation. On stage and on record they are a fearsome brew of hard stepping Junglist rhythms, classical Indian influences and speeding socially conscious lyrics. When I saw them supporting Dreadzone recently I was stunned by the way they had absorbed Drum & Bass so completely and were able to work it into a pounding sweaty live set that would have moved a rocking festival crowd as easily as disciples of Kenny Ken and Marvellous Cain.

I met the core of ADF on the day before they set off on a month long gruelling European tour. Chandra Savale (Chandrasonic), Aniruddha Das (Dr Das) and Deeder Zaman (Master D) sit around their studio base in the Community Music Centre, London, where the group came into being. As Das explains it. "The organisation itself has been going for just over 10 years and Chandra and I run quite a few music courses. Some are one year courses like the Music and Technology Training (which D is doing) and then there's MTTC for musicians wishing to become teachers, which Chandra and I did a few years ago.". They ran into Drum & Bass nut Deeder, ADF's 17 year old rapper and MC, through a documentary about young Asian musicians, where he was, embroiled in Breakbeat Rave culture they had at least 10 years more experience in 'the biz' and technical skills to go with them. It was a match and just needed the deck-wizardry of Pandit G and Sun-J's live sequencing to create ADF as the effective unit it has become today.

Foundation's Aniruddha Das once performed with acts like Orbital and Pentatonic during his days with Headspace Sound System, and Chandra co-founded Birmingham's Ambient Higher Intelligence Agency and was involved in setting up the city's famous Oscillate club night. Both however became bored with the blinkered attitude they found in much of the dance community where caning it was the be all and end all of existence. "We've got to the point where everyone's chilling out but no one's chilling out from anything," says Chandra, "The whole idea of chilling out was to get away from something. Now people have forgotten about the real thing they were escaping from. One of our terms is 'conscious party' - we're into partying and having a laugh but there's no reason why you should be banned for talking about something a little less hedonistic in a club. The two aren't mutually exclusive." Warming to his theme he continues, observing his bands place in the scheme of things; "The time has come really - we've got to change the way things are perceived, even to a tiny degree. We go out and do workshops in housing estates and youth club where we actually encourage people to take control and become producers rather than just consumers."

Chandra and Das want to demystify DAT players, sequencers, effects units and technology in general so that anyone can have a bash at cutting a tune and in doing so they have opened up the floodgates for influences on their own music. Jungle, through Deeder, has had the most notable impact. They once regarded the Breakbeat sound as 'Mickey Mouse music' but Das and Chandra are now as likely to be found at 'Speed' or 'Metalheadz Presents' as anywhere. Being older, they draw from a wider range of music. "Motown, P.Funk, Hip Hop, Acid House", says Chandra, "I like a lot of Leftfield Rock too. There are people with the right vibe in all kinds of music."

I wondered why then, the term 'Dub' was in the group's name as of all musical forms it is commonly perceived to be the most chilled out of all. "Cos we smoke lots of ganja and listen to Bob Marley", says Deeder to much laughter. When it subsides Dr Das points out that, "In its original sense Dub was about experimentation, taking material that was already recorded and reworking it. We regard it as a framework for experimentation. We've been put on many Dub nights and then they expect us to be skinning up and whatever but then we hit them all with this distortion and noise." Just when I thin he has finished he remembers the bass, his instrument; "George Oban, the first Aswad bassist, and Robbie Shakespeare (Sly and Robbie's electronic dub innovators) - the way they use bassline melodies - sometimes that's the only tune in the song apart from the voice." He suggests ADF's 'Tu Meri' as a personal example.

These diverse sounds reached a heady culmination last Autmumn with the release of 'Facts and Fictions', the debut album, almost over-jammed with ideas and often anger. "We had 30 years of stuff to get out of our heads and basically we got a lot of it out", says Das now, "That's why it was so intense because you never know when you're going to get another opportunity to do that." The album encompasses so many different styles that there is probably something on board for most listeners, though my personal favourite is 'TH9', a livid white hit Junglist-funk-metallic number about modern fascism that advises 'kick the fuckers in the head'. Chandra soon prove to be as direct as the song about his feelings. "It was inspired by Britain at the time of the election of BNP (British National Party) councillor Derek Beacon, about 3 years ago. You had increased fascist attacks round here", he says, "Also, the line 'too many people still waiting for release' refers to Satpal Ram. Him and some of his friends were attacked in a Birmingham restaurant by people giving verbal and physical abuse, but he protected himself. He's the one who gets put away and the geezer who died refused hospital help that might have saved his life. So how can they put this guy away for murder .... I just dont know." Satpal Ram was imprisoned in 1986 and has just had his plea in the Court of Appeal turned down. He hopes to take his case to Europe. For further information contact: Free Satpal Ram, 101 Villa Road, Handsworth, Birmingham. Or call: 0121 507 1818.

For the immediate future the band have a new single out in April, 'Change A Gonna Come'. "It's uplifting, positive, but also questioning", says Chandra. "Something is gonna change. Things cannot go on the way they are. Too many people are getting fucked up." And for those who couldn't give a hoot about all the chatter, there is a wicked hard-edged Jungle mix of the title track and an awesome spliffed out dub of 'Jericho', a song from the album.

Talking with ADF is such a tonic that I wondered if they had an opinion about Eternity's recent flogging in certain newspapers for testing Ecstacy and trying to give its readers a pace of the pros and cons of drug taking. Chandra doesn't need asking twice; "Drugs are just a part of being human, being animals", he says, well in his flow by now, "Basically you've just got to be honest about drugs - the problem is the way people are pushed into becoming outlaws. They get into a lifestyle associated wiht it. A lifestyle based on a drug is a bit limiting and can be quite dangerous, but you can't go around banning ir or saying 'YOU ARE MAD' - it should be up for discussion. The fact is that the state has such an interest in making people who are involved in it outlaws. It's all image to them - all sound bite. When they started doing stuff about drugs screw you up, 'Heroin - just say NO', they spent all the money on adverts while they cut money for rehabilitation centres. I'm sure that a lot of police and government know that really E is far less harmful than alcohol, but they're in the pay of the beer barons." Well, that's said it. But just to finish off I play devil's advocate and suggest that when people are out of their box dancing, maybe they don't want to hear ADF's social comment.

Chandra Savale: "All we're saying really is there's things out there you ought to think about. You don't have to think about them all the time, but don't NOT think about them."
Aniruddha Das: "They don't necessarily want to hear it.... but part of what we're doing is interesting people gradually."
Deeder Zaman: "The majority of people out there think 'I've got to listen to this tune at least a couple of times', and the first time they don't even hear it."
Chandra Savale: "If people get off on the music, subconsciously they're already listening to us. Even if they can't hear a word that Deeder's saying, the vibe is getting to them. That's a start."

Yes, it is! Thanks to ADF, Massey Attack, Lisa Barnes and Sully at Nation. Respect to any crews out there who are questioning the lies.
Words by Thomas Green