Kerrier District: Wagonchrist’s Rough Guide to Cornwall

First published in BPM Magazine.

If releasing records through such notables as Planet Mu, Mo Wax and Virgin wasn’t enough, Luke Vibert returned to long-time compadres Rephlex in 2003 for the five-part Amen Andrews series. This bizarre moniker was a cheeky corruption of a quintessentially English quiz show host from the 1970s, and Vibert used the pseudonym to mine a vein of daft-as-a-brush junglistic hedonism, where drum & bass percussion found itself tied in knots of melodic flim-flammery.

His latest three projects have continued to flesh out his reputation as something of a musical shapeshifter. While the Yoseph album for Warp was a trippy and introspective journey through melodious electronica, the eponymous Kerrier District for Rephlex turned a modern slant on disco raised on a diet of 1980s acid house.  His third full-length in less than a year Sorry I Make You Lush, recorded for Ninja Tune under the Wagonchrist pseudonym, echoes his debut album for the label where he threw chin-stroking intricacy, lithe funk and ill-mannered electro into the blender with the gusto of a crazed, rolodex-equipped matchmaker.

Quite what makes a single producer so versatile may never be fully understood, but with Vibert’s latest nom-de-pleum a translucent reference to his childhood home within the Kerrier principality of Cornwall, England, BPM trekked to the outer reaches of the UK in order to uncover his roots. The peninsula on which Cornwall sits is as remote as can be from London. Following a six hour drive from the capital, the visitor is rewarded with scenery which spills spectacularly into the ocean on three sides and sub-tropical temperatures, a result of a kindly stroke of the Gulf Stream over the south western tip of the British isles. With its own language and traditions closer to Celtic brethren of Ireland or Northern France, the county has remained historically difficult to govern and the continuing legacy of this geographical oddity is that it has continued to evolve at a different pace to its less remote, more metropolitan, cousins.

Although now sharing his time between Hackney, London and a home in Marseille, France, Luke retains strong memories of his upbringing in Cornwall. “I’d read some interview involving the development of the Metro Area label, and their distance from New York,” he says, in explanation of the Kerrier District moniker.  “I could see some parallels with my own experience, in that Cornwall is peripheral geographically.  I’m positive that the insular nature of Cornwall has affected me, and that my music would be completely different if I’d been brought up in a city.  Cornwall is like a big garden or playground, almost Mediterranean, but culturally it’s like going back fifty years or something in that people still say hello to you in the street, as opposed to that slightly dodgy feeling you get in big cities. When we were kids, we had to make our own entertainment, and subsequently our own music, parties and whatever.”

He admits that geography has much to do with his output.  “The Plug, and latterly Amen Andrews material, was all tied up with me having left Cornwall and moved up to London in the mid-nineties.  Many of my friends had moved away, going off to college or whatever, and musically I wanted to go clubbing and there was really no comparison locally other than a venue called the Bowgie (Cornish for cattle shed – an early DJ venue for Tom Middleton, and the Aphex Twin), which closed at a quarter to one.”

“The Kerrier District album was weird.  I’d written that material a couple of years ago, when my (French) girlfriend and I had gone to France and had been waiting for our second child to be born.  As it transpired we had loads of time doing nothing, just chilling out.  For some reason I started making that Kerrier District stuff, which I think is distinguished by a kind of soulful mellowness.  I’ve tried to do similar stuff since, but it just hasn’t sounded the same at all, and I think that must be down to the mood I was in at that time – being in a different country, waiting for a baby.”

A castle, a maze, two gardens, and a hole in the ground – Luke Vibert’s Kerrier District

Placename: Carn Brea Castle
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk Grid Reference : SW686408

Carn Brea Castle started life in the 14th century as a chapel, but was rebuilt by the Basset family in the 18^th Century as a hunting lodge.  It is now a restaurant.

“I was brought up nearby and had some mates who lived in the village, so I used to ride my bike around there all the time.  It’s a beautiful looking place and I just love the castle and walking around it, and when I was older going up there and having a puff.  It gets really windy up there and we used to stand on rocks and it’d be hard to stand on them, laughing loads and getting blown off them!

Placename: Fox Rose Hill Gardens, Falmouth
Location http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk Grid Reference : SW 806 330

Falmouth was once home to the Packet Ship service which sailed to the Mediterranean and the Americas from 1688 to 1852 carrying mail and goods. These world wide links led to the development of large private gardens, including the Robert Were Fox’s two acre garden in the early 1800s where exotic plants from China and Australasia thrive in the subtropical climate of the region.

”I’ve got to include Falmouth as there’s another castle there, but the Art School gardens were certainly a favourite haunt for getting drunk and messing around.  You took all these places for granted when you were a kid, and I’m really glad that my kids are now in Marseille and getting to take these kind of places for granted”.

Placename: Mawnan Smith Maze
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk Grid Reference : SW768276

Situated in Glendurgan, a valley garden created in the 1820s by the wealthy Fox family, the laurel maze dates from 1833.

“That maze was great.  I had some good times there.   When it was dark at night, just running as fast as you can, getting lost.   We’d play the most ridiculous games.  Do I miss that?  Definitely.  You can’t really run around and jump off stuff in big cities.   You could, but you’d feel stupid.”

Placename: Trelissick Gardens
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk Grid Reference : SW840393

First established in 1750, the 500-acre Trelissick garden is an estate of tranquil beauty,and offers panoramic views down the Carrick Roads, at the head of the third deepest natural harbour in the world, the Fal estuary.

“We used to drive up there and it would be so dark that you couldn’t see any lights – no houses or anything.  We’d stare at the headlights on full beam, and then just run as far as we could – get completely blinded and lost, and take hours to find the car again.  It was wicked.  We’d have had mushrooms,” he admits, by way of explanation.

Placename: Gwennap Pit
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk Grid Reference : SX130777

John Wesley preached to as many as 1500 of the devoted in this natural amphitheatre, which was remodelled as a permanent memorial to Wesley in 1806, with twelve concentric circles of seats and an outer wall.  It is still regularly used as a venue for plays and musical performance, in addition to an annual service which dates back to Whit Monday 1807.

“Nice reverb!  Just a crazy sort of place, really.  I went back there with Aphex Twin and John Peel back in 1997 as part of a television programme called ‘Sound of the Suburbs.’ John Peel loved it.”