Tim Simenon, aka Bomb The Bass, is a bit of a CMU hero. With 'Beat Dis' in 1987, he was one of the earliest house acts to cross over from the underground to the UK mainstream, and he remains highly influential today, despite leaving the Bomb The Bass name pretty much dormant for more than 10 years. And I think it's fair to say the third Bomb The Bass album, 'Clear', and the excellent single, 'Bug Powder Dust' (the best dance track of all time ... as voted by me) have grown to near legendary status since their release in the mid-nineties. Now, thankfully, Bomb The Bass is back with new album, 'Future Chaos', which is out this weekand features guests including Mark Lanegan, Fujiya & Miyagi, and Toob. We spoke to Tim about the past, present and future.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
What really inspired me to start making music was hearing a track called 'Being Boiled' by the Human League in about 85. That made me go out and buy a Doctor Rhythm drum-machine and a Yamaha CS01 monophonic synth. I wanted to recreate the white noise at the start of the track for myself - I wanted to crack the code and understand how they did it. That led to me learning the mechanics of how to programme a drum-machine and understanding sound manipulation. This all came way before I was ever confident enough to do something on my own though.

Around this time I was also on the verge of DJing, which was inspired by seeing a clip of Grandmaster Flash on TV doing 'Adventures On The Wheels of Steel' with two turntables, where he's chopping up 'Good Times' by Chic and 'Another One Bites The Dust'. That was when I started saving up to buy two Technics 1200s. That was the next stage: the combination of drum-machine, CS01 and the turntables.

In those early days I was so open to things; discovering new music. I think Bomb The Bass has some of that running through it. That and trying to do something that is a little bit different; being open to a lot of things, but not necessarily slavishly following one genre. And I think the new album, 'Future Chaos', is really a good example of that, and it's the record I'm most proud of. I feel this is the one where it all somehow fits - Jon Spencer up against Paul Conboy, with Fujiya & Miyagi or Toob in there, too. It pulls together quite nicely.

Q2 How do you build a track?
Well, I suppose if you pick a track like 'Fuzzbox' [off the new album], that started with a drum loop and a bass tone; which is pretty much how most of the tracks start, an atmosphere or a feeling to launch from.

That said, it's been in the percolator for ten years and changed about four times. The first version was Jon Spencer And The Blues Explosion playing on top of that loop; like a rock & roll jam, with Jon on a megaphone, plus drums and guitar. It was recorded at the beginning of '98 in Chung King Studios in Soho, New York. That is the only thing that survived from the original Bomb The Bass session for what would have been the follow-up to 'Clear'.

I then took it back to London and stripped it back, and the bits I enjoyed the most were Jon's vocals. The backing track has since been through about four different stages: a krautrock version, an electronic up-tempo version, but with a funky moog bass-line under it. And now the version that's on 'Future Chaos', which is actually double-time, compared to the original.

Q3 Which artists influence your work?
On 'Future Chaos', Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder are the two main influences running underneath. A track like 'So Special', the bass-line on that was inspired by those two. They are the foundation. But then I guess something like 'Smog' might have some early Fad Gadget (early Mute recording artist) influence going on.

On the other hand, something like ' Black River' with Mark Lanegan would also have some elements of Martin Denny, who was a guy who was quite popular in the 50's doing Exotica. Denny and his band would play in the lounge of, say, the Hilton in Hawaii. Fantastic musicians, very percussive and dream like.

Q4 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
It sounds great in mono.

Q5 What are your ambitions for the latest single and album?
For me, I think my original ambition was to find closure by getting it finished. I started this album ten years ago, and it's always been there niggling away in the back of my mind. That and nine years of people saying, 'are you going to finish it?' or 'is it ready?'

But now it's finished and we're out starting to play it live, the actual performance side has started driving me on. I'm hearing things differently now that we're playing it to an audience; and it's inspiring me to create more Bomb The Bass material. What I'm writing at the moment will benefit from us playing live... and playing loud!

The whole 'Future Chaos' project is like going back to the beginning for me; it's about stripping everything back, taking away all those choices, and thinking how did I used to make music? How did I do it with just a keyboard and a drum machine? Except now, the moog has taken the place of the CS01 and the drum-machine is my laptop. Everything feels like it's come full circle.

published september 2008