Asian Dub Foundation

• country:
  United Kingdom
• style(s):
  Drum and Bass Punk
• label:
  Naïve
• type:
  Band, DJ/Remixer
• instrumentation:
  instrumental, vocal
• artist submitted by:
  Koeterhai Booking

"You know, there's a reason why Asian Dub Foundation have toured with people like Primal Scream, Radiohead, The Beastie Boys," reflects ADF's guitarist Steve Savale, aka Chandrasonic. "We may have taken our rhythms from the club scene but over the top of that we've always been very guitar driven, very anthemic, lots of shouting. That's what distinguished us from the rest of the so-called "Asian Underground". That's what's distinguished us from pretty much everyone, in fact."
ADF were famously described by Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie as the best live act in the world. Anyone who ever saw them can attest to the combustible potency of their "antifusion" of dub, banghra, hiphop, rock. And now, with Punkara, they've stormed back with an album in which everything about them onstage - their raucousness, the smiles on their faces as they kick out - shines through on record. It's epitomised in a cover of "No Fun", a collaboration with Iggy Pop himself, who when they played a festival together told them they were the best group he'd seen in 30 years, and when he played their demo in his car got so excited he copped a speeding ticket. ""No Fun" involves two visceral music forms," says Chandrasonic, "unbridled, off the hook banghra meets unbridled off the hook thrash proto-punk.
The two aren't combined very often but they have a lot in common." And true enough,Iggy fits right into the banghra context as if into a leather glove. When recording "No Fun", Chandrasonic told their Punjabi vocalist Sups to"imagine if you were your Dad drunk on whiskey." Something of the energy of a fight at a banghra wedding tears through Punkara. It reflects a change of line-up, and, despite hints of grime and dubstep here and there, a move away from club-orientated sounds, which ADF regard as currently a little staid, towards a music more in keeping with ADF's incendiary, impatient spirit.
Geopolitical consciousness lingers, naturally, in tracks like "Living Under The Radar (Ghostplane)" - as you would expect from a group who in the past
campaigned for the freedom of the unjustly imprisoned Saptal Ram, a group whose commissions have including live soundtracking for the film The Battle Of Algiers and scoring an opera about Colonel Gadaffi. But with the world having eventually come round to ADF's viewpoint on The Iraq war, for instance, they feel no need to apply the sledgehammer to a wall that's long since crumbled. On Punkara, they're more satirical. "Altered Statesmen" takes its cue from a documentary which shows the historical dependency of world leaders such as Churchill and Kennedy on drugs while in office, while"Burning Fences" is a Ballardian fantasy of the respectable middle classes resorting to violence. Or maybe not such a fantasy. "Riots in IKEA?" muses Chandrasonic. "It's suburban madness!"
"Ease Up Caesar" features new vocalist Al Rumjen (formerly of King Prawn)whose punk/ska sensibility he brings to bear in a performance that brings the agitpop energy of The Beat's "Stand Down Margaret" bang up to date.
And, for respite, there's "Speed Of Light", in which the Mali desert is imagined from the perspective of being squashed on the tube, in which all the fragrances and sampled vistas which colour ADF are brought sweetly to the fore. "StopThe Bleeding", meanwhile, shows a more nuanced, personal aspect to an album more sung than shouted; "gonna get myself up off the ground/ take my head out of my hands". ADF face the future with deep-dyed positivity.
Their fan base is truly global, spanning France and Eastern Europe and as far afield as Japan(where they are due to play the closing slot at the Fuji Rock Festival).
ADF are back - get ready for the sound of the alternative crunch.