Let’s Work: An Interview With LV

Check the blogosphere today for rumblings on Hyperdub’s latest release, Sebenza. The excitingly fresh LP is gifted from electronic music’s quiet boys, LV. ‘Sebenza’ means ‘work’ in Zulu, and it features collaborations from some of the various future sounds of the South African music scene. Okmalumkoolkat, Ruffest crew and Spoek Mathambo all lend their unique and distinct vocals to the tracks. The result is a seamless blend of LV’s characteristic South London deep garage, funky and soulful dub cosying up to the newly burgeoning post-Kwaito sound of modern South Africa – a yet-to-be-pigeonholed scene that is slowly finding itself a name and an identity.

LV are Will, Simon and Gervase – three London locals who have been signed to Hyperdub since back in 2007. You may have heard of them via their first single, “Globetrotting”, a dub-tinged rootsy affair featuring the vocals of Errol Bellot. More likely you’ve cut some rug to their paean to the capital, “Northern Line”, the gloriously silly single from the Routes LP – a collaboration with spoken word artist Joshua Idehen released by Keysound. Or perhaps you’ve encountered their breakout single and first foray in to South African partnerships, “Boomslang”. It is a heady mix of speedy synths and gloopy thick bass featuring the fevered vocals of Okmalumkoolkat.

LV feat Okmalumkoolkat: Sebenza (Hyperdub 2012) from Hyperdub on Vimeo.

Gervase explains that this is probably where the seeds of a South African collaboration album were sown: ““Boomslang” is perhaps a fitting starting point. Because that’s the first track we had out with South African people. I met Okmalumkoolkat four or five years ago.” Gervase, who lived in South Africa until the age of six, has been making regular trips back to his sort-of-motherland ever since. “I’m English in South Africa and South African in England,” he sighs. His confused identity made him the ideal facilitator for a remote transatlantic collaborative process.

The boys explain that many of the tracks that feature on the album were being made long before the release of Routes. “There was always some vague idea that we were working towards something. But it wasn’t ‘til recently that we realised that we had enough tunes to make an album,” explains Simon. They talk about the organic way in which the album took shape over many years – each trip back to South Africa for Gervase would offer up more collaboration options to come home and tell his friends about. “Marcus at Hyperdub heard that I was going to South Africa and told me to get in touch with this guy Spoek [Mathambo],” explains Gervase. “I dropped Spoek an email and he wasn’t gonna be in South Africa, but he told me to look up his buddy Smiso [Okmalumkoolkat]. So, when I was in Jo’burg I got in touch with Smiso. He came round to my house and the rest is history.”

From there Gervase began to make more connections on the South African scene. He hooked up with Spoek and they worked on some tracks together. As Spoek explains, “Gervase showed a genuine interest in the same South African music that was driving me crazy when I met him, so we just bonded and stayed in touch. I'm also a big fan of different UK sounds that Gerv's involved in so we have always had a good friendship.” Gervase stumbled across Ruffest when he was out DJing with label-mate Scratcha DVA. Some rum-drenched mutual love was shared: “It was our third performance at the venue and we were fired up when we saw this dude from LV and his friend Scratcha with a camera shooting the performance while he was dancing”, recall Ruffest. The next morning they found themselves in the Cape Town Red Bull studios sending beats back and forth to Will and Simon, who were ensconced at the Red Bull studios in London.

With no budget to speak of and some flaky internet connections the artists had to work as closely as they could from opposite ends of the world. The fractured production style may have influenced the atmosphere and sound of the frenetic end result. “Whenever Gerv would go to South Africa, we’d send him down with loads and loads of beats and he’d try and get as many recordings from the vocalists as possible. So, a lot of the tunes went through a few stages of development,” explains Will.

There are some tracks on the album that have received minimal filtering treatment. “Will and Si whacked us over a beat that they’d been making in London. The Ruffest guys, they were just like, ‘aw yeah, that’s wicked.’ They got on it like half an hour later. That’s “Thatha Lo” off the album,” Gervase explains. By contrast, there are other tracks that arrived at a point way further from where they started out. “A tune like “Limb”, for example, it’s just got fragmented vocals. Or “DL” is another one where it’s more sort of abstracted and cut up,” says Gervase.

The nature of the beast required a degree of compromise on all parts. As Okmalumkoolkat explains “I would fall in love with some tracks and hate some because I would be attached to the original idea. But then I fully understand how three beatsmiths could compromise amongst each other for the best version of a single track. So, I would humble my ego when necessary.” The bottom line was that this was an LV production, so they had final say on the output. But overall the London trio took a democratic approach to putting the album together, simply asking that their collaborators trust their final judgments.

When asked whether they had any fear that the LP may be subject to criticisms of Paul Simon-esque appropriation, LV are confident in their decisions and approach. “We’re doing it post-apartheid for a start,” explains Will. “So, we’re not just trampling over the hopes and dreams of an entire nation just to do what we feel like doing.” Plus, this was not simply LV’s attempt at ‘doing South African music’. It was more a meeting of minds. As Gervase explains “South African music is certainly not one of the only things that informed this stuff.” He talks about how the artists would share music, discovering mutual appreciations for new sounds happening all over the world. “For example we’re all into Rashad and Spinn and some of the jukey stuff,” he explains. “I remember Spoek sending me a zip of all of that kind of music. So, it’s quite funny that that whole world of music came to us via Spoek.”

The resulting album is something decidedly Hyperdub in its dogged refusal to bow to genres. LV concede that there is a unique sound that threads its way through their LP, but that is as specific as they are willing to go. “There’s a certain sound that we’ve got when we work with these guys, so it just sort of makes sense to put those tunes together,” says Simon. Their unassuming stance may underestimate the importance and uniqueness of the project. The bridging of disparate sounds offers something excitingly fresh, introducing rarely heard South African influences to a UK audience and vice versa.

And what next for the production trio? They would like to step out from behind their omnipresent collaborations and have a go at something purely instrumental. “It would be quite nice to do something where the challenge was that the music was interesting to us without having that crutch of guest vocalists,” explains Will. Whatever they decide, they can move forwards safe in the knowledge that they‘ve mastered the art of musical partnership.
 

Title image of LV by Jason Turner. Sebenza is released today in the UK and next week in the rest of the world.