Static Traveling with Jan Ove Hennig

Listening to seminal 1990s jungle and drum'n'bass tunes with the artist formerly known as Kabuki

This is the first installment of a new format here at zensounds.

In Static Traveling, I will be talking to artists, musicians, fellow writers and other music nerds while listening to pre-selected tunes. We will talk about the music, put it in context, and attach a few personal stories.¹

For this debut issue, I welcome my friend, the Frankfurt-based sound artist and music producer Jan Ove Hennig, who’s created experimental electronic music under the artist name Kabuki for three decades.

In the 1990s, he started out in drum’n’bass outfits Makai and Megashira; these days he’s focusing on modular synthesis and large-format audio installations.²

He’s also one of the most knowledgeable music lovers I know – which makes him the ideal candidate for testing out this column.

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Scarface – “I Seen a Man Die (4 Hero NW2 Gangsta Move)” [1995]

Stephan: I’ve never heard this remix, though back in ‘95, I was really into the Geto Boys and 4 Hero. At the time, many jungle tracks featured vocal samples from hip-hop and reggae. I love that combination of hard-hitting drums and gentle keyboard chords too.

Jan: I listened to both hip-hop and jungle as well, but this was the first fusion that worked for me. 4 Hero were the first to bring both styles together in an organic, authentic way. Marc Mac and Dego were outstanding in the way they edited drums. Listen to those pitch-altering hi-hats flying around the room – these are the famous “hi-hat snakes”, which you’d later hear on Goldie’s Timeless. That Rhodes piano gives it a funk fusion vibe, and that monophonic analogue synth foreshadows their Jacob’s Optical Stairway project.

Stephan: One of the best drum’n’bass albums of all time! That one, and A Guy Called Gerald’s Black Secret Technology. I wasn’t a club kid, and never really became one. Those albums proved that jungle can work as headphone music too. 4 Hero were instrumental in opening that whole breakbeat science cosmos and showing me its roots in soundsystem and beatdigging culture.

Jan: Right? We can’t give them enough props really. They built the foundation for everyone else. Reinforced existed before Metalheadz. It all happened in Dollis Hill first.

Ed Rush & Nico – “Technology (Boymerang Remix)” [1997]

Jan: I remember when I first heard the original. Nico once came to our studio in Hanau. That night, he wanted to go to the Omen techno club to meet someone. We were driving into Frankfurt in my Nissan Micra when he showed me “Technology” for the first time, that was before [the No U-Turn compilation] Torque came out. He played it from tape, and it completely knocked me over. The track was a milestone, mostly because it wasn’t quite as dark as the rest of their tunes. Did you know they used a sample from Blade Runner, straight off the VHS?

Stephan: I didn’t know that. But I agree, that tune felt dark, but really quite funky too.

Jan: Yeah, it’s a two-step beat, but with a certain funkiness to it. This remix is interesting though. Everyone was talking about Boymerang at the time; he was declared the next rising star. He brought a new, interesting sound to the game – his drums were quite unconventional, nobody sounded similar back then. The beat that comes in after the break is legendary. Dillinja sampled it directly from there – his tune “Silver Blade” is really just an edit of that breakbeat. While that 303 is actually a reference to Dillinja’s sound, so there was a lot of cross-pollination going on.

Stephan: Did you play that remix out in the clubs?

Jan: Definitely. It always created this very special atmosphere, quite similar to another great tune of the time, “Shadow Boxing” by Doc Scott. Both tracks worked with that long build-up to create this immense tension. That would be hard nowadays, because you’d need the audience’s full attention to get that effect. It was easier back then, because nobody brought their phone to the club. You were immersing yourself in the music. Only two or three DJs usually played per night, so you had enough time to take people on a journey.

Stephan: Just the intro to this remix is way too long for a TikTok reel.

Jan: True. (laughter)

Stephan: It should be noted that Boymerang is an alias of Graham Sutton, who had already written history as the lead singer-songwriter of the post-rock band Bark Psychosis. After the band split up in ‘95, he reinvented himself as a techstep-style drum’n’bass producer.

Jan: His drum’n’bass career was quite short-lived too. After a few years, he retreated from the scene.

Stephan: In interviews, he’d said he never wants to repeat himself.

Jan: That’s actually nothing you could accuse him of.

Stephan: Nope.

Ben Cardew

recently wrote this piece about his favorite techstep joints (Part 1 | Part 2). Agree that techstep killed jungle?

Jan: A lot of early techstep tunes were great, like Alex Reece’s “Pulp Fiction”. It’s such a weird tune, really. That’s a two-step beat, edited from some TLC remix I believe. The snare always comes a bit too late. The drum pattern is simple, it’s almost a straightforward 4/4 rhythm, just the second kick drum is a bit off. This type of rhythm dominated the clubs for a while, because it builds a continuous pulse and allows you to create a storyline on top of it. “Pulp Fiction” or those early Virus Records tunes, they had groove – just some funk breaks and analogue synths sent through distortion boxes. Sure, at some point it turned into a blueprint and then it became redundant, which is when everyone started to compete against each other, like: who’s louder, who’s harder, who can benchpress more? The music lost its experimental spirit.

Stephan: Do you actually listen to those new school drum’n’bass producers like Tim Reaper, Sully, or Coco Bryce?

Jan: I do check out the occasional tune, and I enjoy some of them, but the ones I like tend to use that drum’n’bass energy to create something new. That overall sound has lost a bit of the spirit of experimentation, you know, all parameters are set and you can’t stray away from the formula too much. For me, jungle was a promise of the future, so it’s more of a spirit than a genre to me. That’s probably why I’m not spending a lot of time within the actual genre anymore, because I’m increasingly finding that spirit elsewhere.

J Majik – “Apache” [1996]

Stephan: Hands down, one of my top five drum’n’bass producers. He occupies that sweet spot halfway between Dillinja and LTJ Bukem – his tunes aren’t super muscular, but also not really ambient. You can play them in the car – it’s still club music, it does have a rough edge –, but it’s very melodic, floating and rolling. My favorite J Majik tune is “Slow Motion”. Such a banger.

Jan: I always found his style very attractive too. He released loads of seminal records, but this tune always flew a bit under the radar. He just uses the same drum beat all over the record [“Apache” by the Incredible Bongo Band], but he’s developing his own thematic language out of it. It also has this jazz-funk fusion feel, gives me deep In a Silent Way vibes.

Stephan: That reminds me of that Dutch 1990s documentary on YouTube, the moment when Photek puts on Miles Davis’ “Lonely Fire” and says: “This is the kind of sounds we’re trying to make at the moment.”

Jan: What’s notable is that in that phase, they usually didn’t have much equipment. They might have had an Akai S-1200 or some Roland sampler, and maybe a Mackie desk, but that was it. Compressors were virtually unknown. The aesthetic was very stripped down, and you needed to bring a certain level of innovation to make something special.

Stephan: Those type of constraints often boost creativity.

Jan: Which in turn often leads to a new sound. You can easily recognize the producers from that era by their individual handwriting, like the way they would edit samples. Chopping breaks was the basic foundation, just like practicing études for hours at the piano. Doing that work, you would naturally develop your signature style. Today it’s much harder to identify a specific producer’s style.

Hokusai – “Black Rose” [1996]

Stephan: Hokusai was an alias of Source Direct. Those two geezers in their fast sports cars… This one has a hip-hop vibe to me, very b-boy, very competitive.

Jan: Takes me back. Another great example of a drum workout. This is “Funky Mule” by Ike Turner, a classic beat, very compact. It doesn’t have a roll, that’s why it sounds quite claustrophobic. And that atmosphere in the intro, that’s from a Quincy Jones tune, a soundtrack I believe? I love how they were still raiding those jazz-funk classics here.

Stephan: If we’re talking drum breaks, how many of them did producers actually use back then?

Jan: Maybe ten to twelve, not more. You had “Amen”, "“Apache”, “Think”, “Cold Sweat”, “Funky Drummer”, “Hot Pants”, “Soul Pride”, “Funky Worm”… and then a few more exotic ones, like Skull Snaps or “Sesame Street”. Producers would often switch between breaks in the same tune, like they did here. Some were also trying to find other open drum sounds on the same record, in order to reconstruct the breaks in a previously unheard way. With some breaks, you needed to have different versions; “Funky Worm” was mixed differently on the seven-inch and on the album, so you had to get both records to sample them in the highest possible quality.

Stephan: Photek is another obvious favorite of ours, closely linked to Source Direct. At the time, he was producing his milestone album, Modus Operandi.

Jan: What’s crazy about that record is that you can still listen to it and it doesn’t sound dated at all. This Hokusai track is great, but you can obviously locate it within a specific era, just from the drum edits and the overall sound aesthetic. But with Photek’s stuff, it’s sometimes difficult to realize that it’s 30 years old. Even his early tunes, like “The Rain” – such a minimal track with such convincing musical logic. An exceptional artist, really one of a kind.

Stephan: He was so versatile too. With “T’Raenon”, he made the ultimate ambient drum’n’bass tune in ‘96. The version on the flip is this nine-minute dub techno excursion. There’s a third track on the EP, “Kanei”, which sounds more like a Warp-style IDM track. And they’re all amazing.

Dillinja – “In The Mood” [1996]

Stephan: First, some props for the artwork on the thumbnail. Mo’ Wax always had this beautiful visual design by Futura. And Dillinja, some of his tunes are undisputed classics, like “Deadly Deep Subs” or “The Angels Fell”. His drums were just so massive. I like how minimal he gets here. A lot of tension and release, very functional. But he always makes sure to unlock this extra level in the middle of the tune.

Jan: Right? Like the dub delay in this one – suddenly you get the feeling as if the floor space is opening up underneath you. And in the second break, he’s panning the beat through the whole stereo panorama, Adrian Sherwood style, then he dials up a flanger so it starts oscillating. I’d never heard this sound before or after, probably because it’s too extreme for the club. It sounds amazing on headphones, but also really disorienting.

Stephan: We tend to forget that James Lavelle wasn’t all about downbeats, but released some serious drum’n’bass and house tunes as well.

Jan: Yeah, this is from the second Headz compilation, I think it came out on quadruple vinyl. I found their wide roster very intriguing back then – they had people like Luke Vibert, Money Mark, DJ Krush, I think there was even an instrumental Beastie Boys tune on the compilation. Unfortunately you could never play this Dillinja track in the club, just because the pressing was too quiet and had too little bass. They clearly hadn’t thought that through.

Krust – “Future Unknown” [1997]

Stephan: This is a great example of someone using the format of a jungle tune as a canvas. It’s action painting, like Jackson Pollock for the ears. You know, just getting knee-deep in the paint, splashing it here and there…

Jan: That’s a beautiful reference. This tune was an eye-opener for me. It showed me what could still be done within that template. It’s just profoundly disorienting – sounds seemingly appear out of nowhere, and then disappear again. It’s on the same level as some of Arthur Russell’s stuff. Krust produced a few seminal releases in that style. There’s an outstanding tune on his ‘98 solo album, “True Stories”, which is built almost like a chamber music recording, but features some really abstract sounds too. It always created a very special atmosphere when I played it in the club.

Stephan: I can imagine. This one has some really strange, atonal sounds as well. It’s like listening to some avant-garde new music. Because of the constant drum groove, you have at least a rhythmic handle to guide you, but then there are these random objects moving towards you.

Jan: The beat is super interesting too. It’s kind of a reverse two-step – all beats are off, except for the one. It’s almost like an altered dominant chord that radiates this immense tension. It didn’t get much more experimental within the existing drum’n’bass framework.

Karma – “Static Travelling (Ono Sendai Remix)” [1997]

Jan: I brought one of my own tunes along, just because I think it’s one of my most beautiful productions that nobody has ever really heard.

Stephan: It’s gorgeous! There’s a component I often find in your music – it combines analogue and synthetic elements in an interesting way, without necessarily trying to unify them. Each sound is allowed to be itself, yet it sounds coherent as a whole.

Jan: The organic sound sources come from the original Karma tune. Ono Sendai was an alias I used to explore the intersections of drum’n’bass and other electronic music genres. For this one, I actually used the same technique that Boymerang used for the “Technology” remix by applying a really tight filter envelope on all the drum hits. I added a clave, those electro-style basslines and a distorted 303. At the time, I enjoyed working with these contrasts.

Stephan: Who were Karma again?

Jan: A German producer duo. I was friends with Lars [of Karma] for many years. We even ran a label together, Spectrum Works. Their music was exploring jazz aesthetics in a club context, it was even played at David Mancuso’s Loft parties. I remember visiting them in their Cologne studio. Jaki Liebezeit was their neighbor, playing his motorik beats all day. (laughter)

Stephan: Why did you release this under the moniker Ono Sendai?

Jan: At the time, it was more about obscuring things, rather than attaching your name and face to the music. That was pre-social media, obviously. It was important that nobody knew who was behind the music. Which would sometimes lead to this amazing feeling, when you had a record out and it got played in the clubs, but nobody knew that it was you who made it.

Stephan: I love that idea. Like in Style Wars, when Skeme talks to his mother in the kitchen, and she asks him why he’s writing his name on the trains when nobody can actually read those letters, and he just responds, “Well, it’s not for you or for other regular people – it’s just for other writers, just they need to be able to decipher it.”

Jan: Yeah, that approach is actually very liberating. It gives you back so much freedom and autonomy. You can express your creativity without the fear of being judged.

Rhythm & Sound feat. Paul St. Hilaire alias Tikiman – “Never Tell You” (1998)

Stephan: I wanted to finish with something that’s not jungle, but from a similar sound world and has deeply moved and influenced both of us. That was also the year I lost interest in drum’n’bass, to be honest.

Jan: This is such a magic moment in music history. I remember holding the ten-inch in my hands – their packaging was so next level, kind of a Gesamtkunstwerk. The music is timeless, just a classic Rockers riddim, probably made on some Oberheim analogue synth. The aura is created by that constant mains hum and all that static noise. Tiki’s vocal is mixed as if he’s singing from the ether, like a spirit. He’s become a good friend of mine. Throughout all these years of making music, I got to know some amazing human beings, and he’s definitely one of them.

Stephan: I wasn’t really aware of Basic Channel, because I wasn’t much of a techno dude. At the time, I listened to hip-hop, jazz, jungle, downbeats and ambient electronic music, like Warp stuff basically, but very little techno and house. Again, I wasn’t a clubber, and I didn’t grow up in the city either. Rhythm & Sound was the first techno music that I really dug.

Jan: Yeah, this one has the straight 4/4 bass drum, but the Caribbean influence made it feel more like a dub record. Caribbean music is still a huge riddle to me, reggae just has its very own language. A one-drop rhythm creates this ethereal, floating suspension, this very own kinetic. You can’t reproduce that in any other type of music.

Stephan: I always found it fascinating that the music from that small Caribbean island would influence global pop culture on such a massive scale. I’m not even talking about Bob Marley. But the early hip-hop DJs like Herc and Flash were Caribbean immigrants, right? That whole block party spirit came from Jamaican sound system culture. And in London as well, obviously.

Jan: All modern DJ culture is essentially shaped by the Jamaican soundboy aesthetic. Those people were building their own amplifiers, their own effect generators, and they experimented with signals and delays, way before anyone else did it. That Caribbean spirit is probably the main thread through all the music we listened to today.

1. This was inspired by

Vincent Jenewein

’s recent talk with Sunik Kim, and by similar established formats at almost every magazine I worked for previously.

2. I’ve interviewed Jan about his long-standing career for this newsletter.