BIBIO
WITH EACH SUCCESSIVE ALBUM, BIBIO’S INVENTIVE SOUND GAINS THE UNMISTAKABLE TEXTURES OF PERSONAL GROWTH.
If ever an individual has forged his own image in music, it’s Stephen Wilkinson. Every sinew of his body, every aspect of his identity, every thought and concept is writ large throughout the sonic and visual elements of his work as Bibio. With his seventh full-length, the sort-of-in-a-roundabout-way-almost-self-titled Silver Wilkinson, he introduces himself in his most vivid terms yet.
Bibio’s productions have consistently melded an aptitude across a range of instruments with the ability to draw tones and percussive nuances from the world around him thanks to an uncanny knack for sampling field recordings. Releasing his first album fi in 2005, after three records of a technically dazzling meeting of folk and electronica – or, if you’re feeling particularly brash, folktronica (nope, us neither) – with the LA-based Mush Records (ending, funnily enough, with the English Country Garden dialogue of Vignetting the Compost), Bibio found his home at Warp. It was a dream artistic pairing for both parties, and immediately paid dividends with 2009’s superb Ambivalence Avenue. Now approaching his fourth release for the label, Wilkinson’s appreciation has not wavered. “Being on Warp and having expectations to deliver a certain quality is a pressure I like”, he beams. “Warp don’t expect me to polish my sound in a way that a major label might, but they encourage the more songwriting and developed side of what I do.”
Their faith has paid off again, Silver Wilkinson is a gem. A free-flowing, organic and distinctly British creation, Wilkinson’s involving and emotive vocals seep through the record’s fabric, while familiar trickles of the everyday draw the listener in. From the sublime Dye The Water Green, to the uplifting, glittery pop of À tout à l’heure, the shuffling, glitchy sample- mash of You and the stratospheric, searching expanses of Look at Orion!, this is the unmistakable feeling of one man laid bare through sound.
While 2011’s Mind Bokeh saw a continued growth in popularity, it was also a more divisive record than previous efforts. But that is surely symptomatic of wearing your creative hyperactivity so boldly on your sleeve. If he feels compelled to release a strutty, mid-paced rock stomp like Take Off Your Shirt, or the jaunty pop-jangler K Is for Kelson, you can be certain he will. Bibio is essentially an ambitious everyman with a massively diverse range of tastes, making music he wants to hear. Every idiosyncratic aspect of his existence pours into his genuine, generous output and his distinctive visual identity. And that’s something to be truly admired, even revered.
There’s a palpable sense of anticipation around the release of Silver Wilkinson. Is this something you’re conscious of?
I do feel like there’s been a warm response so far. I release music because I ultimately want people to hear it and I want people to be affected by it. Reading comments and hearing what people have to say about it is all part of it. I love it when people like it, of course, but I try not to let negative comments bother me. I think I’ve thickened my skin in that sense. Because my music has been so varied since signing to Warp I have an eclectic fan base, some people seem to like the variety I put out, other people seem to prefer certain aspects of what I do. I’m cool with that.
You’ve established an extremely loyal fanbase, are you conscious of balancing between these devotees and attracting a new audience, or can thinking about the listener too much be counterproductive?
Thinking about the listener works on different levels. If I didn’t think about the listener then I’d possibly put out more self-indulgent stuff as opposed to stuff that’s more worked on and structured. I feel like my albums say a lot about who I am: they have the more meticulous structured tracks and they have the short ambient vignettes, which a lot of people seem to like. I don’t feel like I cater to an audience because that would be impossible, especially when my fanbase seems to have such polarising opinions. This was particularly true with Take Off Your Shirt – some people absolutely hated that track, which I predicted before I released it, but fortunately most people liked it and it turned out to be one of the most popular tracks on the album … but how could I possibly act upon that? It would be too confusing to try and make an album based on what I think the listener wants, but that confusion means I just get on with what I’m into.
Do you feel you’ve ever sacrificed cohesiveness for variation?
No. I think my albums are cohesive, but that’s really in the ear of the beholder. For some people, genres and contrasting styles are a big deal, some people even have serious hang ups about it. I’m very at ease with having a pretty acoustic guitar track followed by a slamming beat track – that’s how I enjoy music. My albums are kind of like films – they have different scenes, they take you on a journey, they meander and have abrupt changes.
You’ve shown an appreciation for the maximal, synthetic sounds of the likes of Rustie and Hudson Mohawke, and it’s something you’ve embraced to an extent, but it’s always counterpointed by an organic, folk element. Is it a tension you enjoy feeding off?
When I’m making music I don’t think of them as being opposites, I think of electronics, synths, drum machines and guitars, pianos, percussion as just different sounds and timbres, because that’s all they are. I think in the 21st century we should be getting over the apparent divide between electronic and organic. But contrary to that, I do sometimes feel that contrast is there, which is why this album is more organic sounding than Mind Bokeh. I like change, I like contrast, but it’s the sonic and mood contrast I’m interested in.
After Mind Bokeh, which was at points almost a pop record, there seems to be a more sombre air around much of this album. Is that reflective of the period which led into it?
To a degree. This last couple of years has been more slow and introverted, I took over a year off from gigs, I had some difficult times and health issues, but I’ve also had good times. I think this is a more emotional album than the previous one, it has a fair dose of melancholy.
Your blog shows you to be very open, happy to share what some might consider quite personal thoughts about music, the world, and the universe in a wider context. Is it almost a compulsion, to get these things out?
Some of the things I write about are not things I would talk to just anybody about, I have certain friends who like to indulge in far-out philosophical conversations and other friends who are more down to earth. Writing blogs and sharing them is really getting stuff off my chest and hoping they reach the right people. I have felt less inclined lately to do that though, so maybe the blogs I had shared over the last year or so reflected a particular phase I was going through.
How much do your philosophical or metaphysical ideas feed into your lyrical and thematic output?
Quite a bit, but I guess lyrics are closer to poetry than essays or blogs. With lyrics or poetry I feel free to be deliberately vague or ambiguous, to not make myself easily understood but hope that I’ve planted a seed in some listeners’ minds. Mirroring All is inspired by stuff I learned from Alan Watts (celebrated British philosopher) but also personal experiences and experiences told to me by friends.
You’re known for your visual work, and things like the album sampler video clearly showcase the relationship between the visual and the aural which is intrinsic to your music. Presumably there’s an innate link between those things, you can ‘hear’ images or ‘see’ sounds?
I definitely respond to music with imagery in my mind. The music which affects me the most is music that paints a scene in my head, then every time I hear it I revisit that place, and it’s pretty much always the same except it might get more detailed. I tend to choose tracks for my albums that have something picturesque about them and hope they will spark people’s imaginations. This is why I like lyrics to be ambiguous, because you leave more room for the listener to picture their own things, rather than be too explicit.
There’s a continuous thread between making videos and the sampling process, based around the idea of gathering from or capturing your environment. Do you think you interact with the world in a more ‘immediate’ way than most?
I don’t know. I feel that music shouldn’t be too shaped by the industries of music technology and fashions, people should think outside of those boxes more, consider anything you can point a microphone at to be a valid sound source for music, rather than using the same old tried and tested instruments and sounds. On the other hand, I love musical instruments and familiar sounds, like guitars, famous drum machines, saxophones. I think blending them together will ultimately feel more personal than just loading up formulaic sounds and making music in a formulaic way. My tutor at art college in 1998 opened my mind up to looking at the world in a more stripped down, more mindful and abstract way. I feel like this has really affected the way I think about sounds and images.
Can you ever turn your creative instincts off?
I spend a lot of time being unproductive, but I never switch off. I’m always thinking about something, it’s what fuels me. I’ve learned that not only is it OK to lie in bed thinking for two hours, but it can also be vital for what I do. William Blake said “Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night”. That’s pretty much my day- to-day life. I don’t believe in forcing it, you can’t force creativity. I’m still trying to un-condition my mind from nine-to-five society, but it’s hard to do. I’ve been a full time artist for four years now and it’s been a learning experience – questioning my productivity, trying to get over feelings of guilt. It’s easy to not feel like you’ve been working hard when you enjoy what you do, but that’s a symptom of the twisted work ethics where people are made to feel like work is doing something you don’t want to do. I’ve been there and I’m grateful I’m not at the moment.
We loved your mix of exclusively British artists, do you see geography, and by extension topography and the environment, to be important in music?
Environments affect people and the things they do, but it’s not necessarily predictable. There has been this link made between urbanity and electronic music, but I think it would be naive to suggest people who live in the country make pastoral folk. When I listen to old Aphex tracks, I imagine myself on a bleak Cornish beach, whether that’s because I know he lived there or whether that is somehow distilled in the music is another thing. Britain is generally an overcast island with not so good weather, there are also a lot of grim places, boring places where nothing exciting happens. I think this can do wonders for the imagination and creativity. I’m not patriotic, but I do feel that this country has produced some very innovative music over the decades.
You seem to have found an ideal home in Warp, do you think any other label would be able to give you the freedom of expression, whilst simultaneously holding all the advantages of a massive label, that you are given there?
Warp is my dream label, has been for about 14 years, so although there are other great labels out there, none of them are Warp. Warp has something about it that I can’t put my finger on, it has changed a lot since I first became a follower but it has kept some kind of essence going all along too.
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Silver Wilkinson is out now via Warp Records.
Words: Geraint Davies
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