Submitted By: conflict

Genre: Videos

Date of Set: Feb 22nd, 2005

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BIOGRAPHIE

Dillinja

To never have had someone like Dillinja involved in the form and progression of drum & bass music would have probably been the biggest mistake ever made. Sure, there's quite a few other key people responsible for taking the fundamental ingredients of dub reggae, acid house, techno and plus hip hop breakbeats and fusing them into the hybrids of early hardcore, but not that many have stood for the complete duration so far. This man HAS, as putting it in perspective, Dillinja (better known to friends and close associates as Karl Francis) defines the true meaning of the genre, and these two elements; drum and bass, are for what he is best renowned.

Forward to Brixton in late September 2000 and Karl is sat in a bar just off the High Street, sporting some sample garments from his and partner Lemon D's forthcoming Valve clothing range. He looks every bit the dapper chap around town, what with the brand new Nike Air Max and the soft-top BMW sports car, but start talking with him and he's probably one of the most modest, funniest and down-to-earth people you could possibly meet. You see, whereas certain producers' egos would have been at maximum inflation after their first taste of adulation and critical acclaim, Karl just isn't like that. He's a perfectionist and the well-known story of him not really liking any of his tunes to date is more or less true...

'The thing is, I've never really been that happy with my sound,' he admits while the first round of drinks arrives. 'I think I'm getting better at liking my stuff more now but I've always wanted to go in the studio and get exactly what I want out. When I leave, it's either; the beats aren't sounding fat or the bass just isn't round and smooth enough. So I am pretty particular.'

This critical process of trying to accomplish THE ultimate sound is why Karl's production technique is way ahead of most...well, day one. Rewind back to downtown Brixton in the late eighties. Thanks to schooling in jazz and funk from his Mum's vast record collection and getting the addiction for looped hip hop breaks alongside heavy dub reggae influence through hearing sound systems such as Jah Shaka and the like, Karl was deeply focused on one main aspect...bass.

'I loved dub back then,' he remembers. 'My nextdoor neighbour used to be heavily into that and he'd give me loads of tapes with all the Shaka stuff on. They were good to test out my bass bins with, ha ha!! From that I really got into building the actual boxes and cabinets to put bass speakers in. Within the speaker enclosures you could experiment with different sounds, you know, twist them around and make them as big and as loud as you wanted. We'd set up these little systems outdoors and would just wait to see how it sounded.'

From DJ'ing out and about on his own sound system through to spending a full two weeks' dole cheque on five hours in a mate's studio to record his first track 'Tear Off Your Chest' at the turn of the 1990's, Karl's movements quickly transcended from that of bass manipulator into that of bass creator.

The 1991 release of said track (on a limited white label pressing) saw people begin to take notice of what Mr. Francis had to say musically, but this was by no means anywhere near his capabilities.

As he states, 'I had so many ideas in my head at that time. There was this little drum machine that I'd bought and I just used to sit there everyday, banging out millions of different beats until I found stuff that I actually wanted to use. None of what I've ever done has been planned, it's just been me going into the studio and saying, 'Fuck it, let's now go in on this,' and getting on with it.'

Music from Dillinja now began to come thick and fast, each track pushing the limits just that little bit further. Over the following four or so years Karl set up a handful of his own imprints - Cybatron, Waveform, Target, Deadly Vinyl and Logic Productions - just so that various outlets were there for him to release the increasing back-log of tracks that he'd been making.

Success quickly came in the form of 'You Don't Know' b/w 'Deadly Deep Subs' (the latter getting remixed for Metalheadz' Razor's Edge off-shoot in '97) on Logic Productions that pretty much changed the way both the bass and the breaks were heard back in 1994. Already, these cuts had explored jazz, hip hop and some of the heaviest low frequencies around, but versatility was what Karl had tucked up his sleeve...

While links had been forged with Fabio and Bryan Gee, alongside longtime friends Clarky and DJ Regulate (who would all regularly cut his new offerings), one of the first major breaks was in the form of the G-Funk-drenched 'Gangsta' and 'I Sellasie I' (that preceeded the infamous 'Muthafucka' and 'Skies') under the Trinity guise for Bryan and Jumping Jack Frost's Philly Blunt label. This, coupled up with engineering 'Frost's Leviticus classic 'The Burial' was the start of a longstanding rapport between the three.

'The more tunes I made, the more I felt I was progressing,' states Karl as the actual output of his creativity dawns on him. 'It got to the stage where I was doing about one tune a day, it was mad! Some were alright, some were terrible, ha ha!!, but I guess it's all a big learning curve really.'

Labels left, right and centre were soon on the case for a piece of the Dillinja pie and before he even knew it, Karl's tracks were making their way to all kinds of places. From Deadly Vinyl's jazz masterpiece 'Sovereign Melody' and his collaboration with Clarky on 'Steeler's Anthem' for Sponge's IQ Records through to delivering Hardleaders' first release in 1994 'Massive' b/w 'Soldier' as Capone after the milestone 'Tear Down Da Whole Place' on Conqueror, the workload had been upped tenfold.

'All of these people were giving me good feedback on my stuff so I was really buzzing about it all,' he adds. 'I just remember dropping off DAT's to this person and that person, nearly every day.'

To actually go in and name every single track put out by Karl since then would take a lifetime, but what's more important throughout this period was the fact that each track released brought home the realisation that his music was simply unreckonable, to the point at which producers would persistently follow the styles and trends that he'd set.

'There'd just been so many tunes that had built up in my studio,' he adds. 'This was why I had to use other names like Capone or The Specialist for Dread, just so that I could get my stuff out there without it looking silly with Dillinja stamped over every other twelve on the racks. I've made hundreds of tracks and most I've lost over the years, ha ha!!'

The early 1995 sound of the apocalyptic 'Angels Fell', 'Brutal Bass' and 'Jah Know Ya Big' for Goldie's Metalheadz imprint set a new precedent. Not only in the way that the heanous basslines, edited Amen and Apache breaks and cinematic sounds all worked as one, but also in the way that a new formula had been set. Engineering duties on 'This Is A Bad' and 'Jah The Seventh Seal' for G's 'Timeless' album were then forthcoming.

However, once a new Dillinja technique had come into play, he was already steps ahead and onto something new. Like he says, 'I do like elements of what I've done but I always want to move on and try something different. At the end of the day, it's what makes ME happy that I want to create with my music. If I can knock out a tune in one, maybe two days at the most, then it's good as if it was any longer I'd just be sick to death of hearing the same thing over and over again. The buzz goes immediately after that.'

While material from his Capone guise for Hardleaders would, later on, shift from the pounding hardstep of 'Voices', Basic Influence's 'Still Waters' and the cataclysmic rolling matter showcased on stuff like 'Friday', 'Paradise' and 'Alaska' through to the rawkus old skool skanks of 'The Growler', 'Fusion' and it's steaming Amen chops and the Harpsichord-led Medieval vibes from 'Tudor Rose', flavour on all other fronts was peaking at full speed. Strategically placed drum patterns and rib-shaking basslines took firm effect on such following moments for Metalheadz as 'Armoured-D', 'Promise' and 'Warrior Jazz' (on 'Platinum Breakz...1', '...2' and the Metalbox compilations, respectively), while 'Threshold' saw Karl encapsulate the whole hardstep vibe in one track before going on to devastate with the Bladerunner sounds of 'Silver Blade' and the epic 'Light Years', all for Grooverider's Prototype stable. Each track, whether the likes of 'Unexplored Terrain' and 'Soul Control' for 'V Classics' or the earthy, jazz guitar grooves of 'In The Mood' on Mo' Wax's 'Headz 2' album, would become an instant anthem. All accolades aside, the main focus for Karl soon came in the form of his and spar Kevin 'Lemon D' King's homefront of Valve Recordings.

Eventually brought into fruition back in 1997, the label - named after the valve-powered amp sound systems from back in the late seventies - kicked off to a rapturous reception with the brutal-as-fuck 'Violent Killa' from Karl alongside Lemon's '12.01'. While the ubiquitous 'The Acid Trak' (on the now-defunct Pain off-shoot) followed, plans were still afoot to keep Valve going, but what with Karl and Kevin signing album deals (FFRR and R&S, respectively) in the process, it wouldn't be until late 1999 that Valve was back on track. First up with Capone's 'Bongo Rock' and 'Deja Vu' from Aquarius 23 and then early on in 2000 with the imprint's debut 'Valve EP'.

'We just wanted to make a lot of music and have it so we could put it out ourselves, at the end of the day,' he comments on it's inception. 'Now that we've finished working on our albums, we've got the time to fully concentrate on Valve. I want to start enjoying myself again and being happy. Instead of just giving tunes out to random labels for silly prices, I want to be able to keep them for my own use as you do lose out on a lot of money in the long run.'

Forward to 2000 and Karl's probably busier now than ever. After a string of successful cuts on his and Kevin's anonymously covert Test and Test Blue off-shoots over the last two years (including; 'So Damn Tuff', 'Vicious', 'Fluid', 'Hard Noize', 'Tronik Funk', 'Thugs' and 'Test Time', among others), two large Trinity EP's released through Chronic and a remix CV that has so far notched up artists as varied as Die, Shy FX, Ray Keith, Krust, Alex Reece and Lemon D through to Soul II Soul, Bjork, Shanie, Faith No More, DJ Krush, 808 State and Jeru The Damaja, it's about time for THAT damn album to show it's face.

Utilising his Cybatron feat. Dillinja moniker, Karl's long-awaited LP 'Cybatron 2000' - including the much-touted 'Nasty Ways', 'All Aboard', 'Go Dillinja' and 'Valve Sound' - for Pete Tong's division of London Records is now set to go.

Commenting on why the wait has been so delayed, he states, 'The album's simply a club-based thing. There's no concepts, deep underlying stuff or anything like that, it's just ten tunes I've made in the last year or so that actually work on the dancefloor. The reason why it's taken so long is that I've constantly been learning while making it. It's been ready and complete loads of times, but because I get bored with my tracks so quickly, I kept on wanting to change it. Realistically, it just needs to get out on the streets now so that it's out of the way and I can move onto the next thing. If it isn't out this year, then I guess I'll have to go and make a new one, ha ha!!'

Currently in the pipeline is Karl's next project...the Valve sound system. Having sold his riverside flat to come up with the cash for both the system and new working units in which to situate his studio and Valve offices (taken care of by DJ Storm), the 50K rig set-up is still under construction but once ready will be able to cater for his exact specifications when DJ'ing both here in the U.K. as well as all over the world. This is why he hardly ever plays out at the moment as many of today's current club systems just can't cope with the amount of bass that Karl has to offer.

As he adds, 'There's so many promoters out there who just don't give a shit about using decent sound systems, all they're interested in is the money. Your music suffers on a bad rig and when that happens it just makes you look like a cunt, even though it's not your fault. That's why I think it's down to people like me to get off their own arses with their own equipment, take it into the clubs and then do nights all over the place. It's the only way forward.'

Karl's enthusiasm for the music in general has only just slowly come back into full focus, though, as recent times (like you've no doubt seen) haven't exactly been as creative and innovative as they were, say...three or so years ago.

'To be honest, I feel that a lot of drum & bass over the past two years has been pretty shit,' he confesses. 'I was going out to clubs and it just ending up sounding like Loftgroover playing gabba! Don't get me wrong, Loftgroover's cool and all that but this is supposed to be drum & bass, not some abstract form of techno. Even garage has more influences in it right now as it's got that old skool jungle flavour and that's what I love. The music definitely lost that whole vibe for me for a while so I'm just trying to bring it back. A lot of people are trying to bring the vibes back and it has improved a hell of a lot in the last six months or so. People like Digital are stepping into some nice styles again and Fabio's playing a lot of wicked tunes right now.'

So, what with the return of good music and all, Karl's looking much happier. While 'Nasty Ways' (in three mixes) alongside 'I Wanna Know' preceeds the 'Cybatron 2000' album in the next couple of months, twelves from Karl, Kevin, longtime spar Bolby, Boymerang (!) and Primary Motive's Danny C are due through Valve in the new year, so too are regular long-players on both said imprint as well as Test.

Therefore, it looks like those deadly deep subs are still going to be rumbling for a long, long time to come...

'It's all come back around for me,' Karl concludes. 'Now that I've got my album, the label and most importantly, the sound system, I'm a happy man. It's always been my dream to go out on the road with a system and do regular nights all over the world. The future IS Valve and I can't wait.'

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