Krush - Koko this Saturday!!!

Japanese hip hop auteur Krush plays Koko on Saturday. I'm very excited. I remember seeing him play at club night Traveller at the sorely missed venue, Scotland Yard in Newcastle in 2002. It ranks in my top 10 DJ gigs of all time (others include Masters At Work at Camden Palace in the mid-1990s, and Carl Craig at a Nuphonic Party in Caledonian Road in the early noughties). Here's an interview - done via email, his English ain't great but it's probably way better than my Japanese - that I put together and appears in today's London Metro...


CLUBS

DJ Krush

DJ Krush is sad. The ex-Yakuza gang member turned hip-hop DJ/producer/artist, who made his name in the mid-1990s as one of the beat scientists on James Lavelle’s cult Mo Wax label that expanded the definition of hip hop by pioneering trip hop and psychedelic rap, has used vinyl and turntables throughout his 15 year career but is switching from analogue to digital.

'I grew up carrying heavy records, getting back pain and playing scratched records on turntables so the transition to digital is a little sad, but it's fine as long as you can use the laptop to create your own sound and relay that to someone else's heart and make them feel something,' explains Krush. 'Ever since 9-11 luggage carry-on limitations have become strict so I can't bring all the records like I used to because it exceeds the limit and I get charged several hundred thousand Yen, and I've also experienced my record bag being stolen.’

No longer will a DJ Krush live show be a dizzying flurry of movement as he rifles through hundreds of records locating a specific beat, sample, traditional Japanese chord or drum, jazz melody to painstakingly construct - beat by beat, note by note, layer by layer – mesmerizing soundscapes rich in texture, detail, emotion and atmosphere. Saturday’s live show – to promote forthcoming History Of DJ Krush DVD - will see the keen night-fisher utilizing a laptop containing all of his samples and Serato software to transmit them to blank vinyl.

In technology terms Krush is moving with the times but he’s far from impressed with contemporary US hip-hop declaring ‘I’m not interested in commercial hip hop.’ He has, however, long been interested in music with a message and his LPs carry strong undertones: Zen captures the hope of a new millennium, Message At Depth’s responds to 9/11 and Jaku reflects a world ravaged by war and cruelty.

It’s been over three years since Krush’s last LP (Jaku) and he reveals that’s he’s working on another, but not its theme. The track he produced last year to support Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto’s campaign to highlight the use of nuclear fuel in a factory in Japan, betrays Krush’s current preoccupation, and quite possibly the theme of his new LP.

‘I have children so problems relating to the future of the global environment can’t be ignored – I recycle, use my own bag when I shop, reuse milk cartons as cutting boards, and reuse bath water to do laundry – I try to integrate what I can in my everyday life,’ he says. ‘One of the reason’s for Africa’s desertification is the cutting down of the rainforests and global warming: The so-called ‘advanced’ countries are the cause of this and third world countries will run into more problems. How do we stop destructive chain reactions? The cause is us.’

Sat, Krush, Koko 1a Camden High Street NW1, 9.30pm ‘til late, £15. Tel: 0870 060 0100. Tube: Mornington Crescent