Fangle Biography

FANGLE is Rob Crow, exiting his native London in the late 1990s, he now lives in Sydney's inner West. After playing guitar with punk bands in London, doing gigs around the UK and Germany, he travelled for a while then settled in Sydney.

"One day I realised that there was a guitar in the house that I hadn't played for over a year. I sold the guitar, took the money and the same day I bought a computer."

Within two weeks he was making beats, within a year his tunes were being played on 2SER Radio.

FANGLE's style of Drum'n'Bass is undeniably influenced by UK producers such as Ed Rush, Optical, Digital, Spirit and Dillinja. There are also occasional hints of Rob's Punk and Dub-Reggae influences in the music.

"I'll take influences from anywhere. When I was travelling I realised that there were so many amazing styles of music in the world, you can't dismiss any one genre as worthless. The punk influence is definitely there, that goes way back, and I'm a big fan of 70s Dub."

Such a big fan, in fact, that Rob has been hosting Dub parties in Sydney for over a year now, under such guises as Bunda Dub and Dub Cricket.

"Dub Cricket was an idea me and some mates had in the pub after a big night out. I said it as a joke at first, then the idea took on its own momentum."

"At one stage there were about 20 people fielding. Nobody was getting caught out though. It's hard to catch a ball with a beer in one hand and a spliff in the other."

Held at The Clubhouse in Glebe, a venue in an railway arch which opens out onto a cricket pitch, Dub Cricket was inspired in equal parts by the 100% Dynamite compilation from Soul Jazz Records and by childhood memories of watching the West Indies playing England at The Oval. There were DJs playing Ska, Reggae, Dub, Dancehall and Jungle, and there was a cricket match.

More recently the Bunda Dub parties have been 'pick of the week' in The Sydney Morning Herald.

FANGLE has also put on Drum'n'Bass/Breakbeat nights called Bundaground.

So what's with the 'Bunda' thing?

"I did this tune in 2001 called Bunda Bunda. At the time it meant nothing, I just kept noticing Aboriginal-sounding placenames called Bunda-something. I came up with a bassline that kind of went Bunda Bunda"

'Then I discovered that Bunda is Brazilian Portuguese slang for Booty. You'd only say it in the context of "Shake your Bunda", you wouldn't sit on your Bunda for example. They even have a Bunda festival"

What costumes might be worn at a Brazilian Bunda festival we'll leave for you to discover.

But back to the Drum and Bass, because that's where FANGLE is concentrating most of his energy right now. Appearing for DJ sets at Protein, Expansion, Hi Jinks, Bump, SoundSummit in Newcastle and Lethal Rhythm parties, including an outdoor party last New Years Eve in bushland outside Sydney with five other sound systems, the DIY ethic is something Fangle is committed to.

The two tunes on the 12" Civilisation and Roach Bomb were originally made on a PC. Then the multitracks were exported , taken to Mike Burnham's Tardis Studio in Enmore, Sydney, transferred to 2" tape and mixed down using a vintage Helios mixing desk, valve compressors and plate reverb.

"The whole analogue process really did warm up the sound. It takes away the digital harshness on the top end, rounds it off a bit." Rob is currently expanding his own studio, and is very excited about his latest acquisition, a UREI LA-4 compressor. "I run all my drums in mono through the UREI now. The difference it makes to programmed drums is incredible. No plug-in really affects sound the way the UREI does, though some can come close."

Rob plays bass on some of his tracks. "None of my bass playing is on this record, but I do have tracks like Subplot where I've recorded some bass lines through distortion effects, loaded the sounds into the computer and seriously manipulated them."

He also taught himself drums, practising twice a week throughout 2003 and even playing a gig at the end of the year.

"Someone like Dillinja, he uses samples of his own drumming all the time, but then he'd been playing since he was 9. No matter if you are quite ordinary behind a real kit, you learn so much that it really helps with programming drums."

Fangle is all about using fresh samples.

"I haven't done an Amen tune yet" (a tune using the instantly-recognisable drum loop from Amen My Brother by The Winstons) "I probably will do one, but how many times can you chop up and re-order the same drumloop and still keep it interesting? Drum'n'Bass tunes have been using the Amen break for at least 12 years now. I'd rather record some new sounds and fuck around with them."