DJHC Interview : Phantasm July 2008

It's a warm weekend just east of Central London and I'm sitting outside some middle-class cafe with who some consider a lost legend. Despite my nerves I manage to keep hold of my tap water and order a lager without incident. "A beer?" I suggest. DJ Hot Cow just leans back in his chair, laughs and throws his cigarette end into the ashtray: "Nah, mate - I'm gettin' too old for that now. Just a whisky. Double." And so he explains how the countryside's best kept raving secret began.

Hot Cow cuts a curious figure in faded jeans, baggy coat and baseball cap, but his energy is beguiling, particularly when talking about the project he's clearly still fond of: Rave In Arms. Northamptonshire didn't know what hit it when "dubs" of their cut/paste mixes hit the black market - they didn't just mix music, they chewed it up and ripped it apart.

"It was totally crazy," Hot Cow explains, "one day in '94, could be '95, me and [other R.I.A. member] Hypurr S. decided we'd had enough of listening to rave tapes - we thought we could do better. No-one else had the sense to argue." They assembled a small ad-hoc pile of tape-recording equipment for their first mix, which gradually expanded into a vast array of bizarre components for their later excursions: "When we started off it was two tape players, but by R.I.A. VI it was 3 cassette decks, a vinyl player, an Atari ST, a telly and an ironing board."

"We hopped around Hypurr's place looking for the right sound - RIA I was in the living room, until we moved to the Garage. Went back there recently - that living room's not there any more. Sad moment for me, that was." The Garage was to become their mythical production venue - a secret location known only to DJHC and Hypurr S. in a sleepy garage in which they tweaked and produced their finest, most experimental work.

"The Garage was pure atmosphere - we always wanted something new. Always. For R.I.A. IV we recorded at night in the Garage in the dark except for torches hanging from the beams. We were hard into the mix when Hypurr jumps onto a bench like a man possessed and starts whirlin' the torch around like a laser. Next thing, it flies off into a corner and dies, and we're both standing in the dark surrounded by all these weird noises going straight into the mix. It was one of the most fucking amazing artistic experiences." Hot Cow's eyes glow for a moment and he lights up another cigarette in triumph. "Lighter!"

What does he make of revisionist music critics calling Rave In Arms a forgotten revolution? "We were, mate, we were. The Coldcut of our day - while they were in a studio whirling 8-tracks between pencils we were chopping Portland Bill and Kia-Ora into 808 drum loops and hardcore. People couldn't believe what they were hearing when our dubs got out." Indeed, not many could forget hearing snatches of "prize cabbages" scratched into layers of Vanessa Mae and Scott Brown in their 'Two Survivors' mix, and their 20-minute re-rub of "I'll Be Your Dog" pre-dates the dubstep movement by almost 15 years.

Rave In Arms' flame burned brightly but quickly, as dubs of their mixes quickly changed hands as far away as Kettering from their secret HQ. But why didn't the lack of recognition at the time? "We had a small but hardcore following - real hardcore. People didn't understand what we were doing, though - they were afraid of what we were producing. It was audio anarchy." R.I.A. changed their DJ names a few times to avoid the gaze of the authorities, and their many adoring Midlands fans. They refused to DJ out in order to keep anonymous, staying silent Kraftwerk-style apart from releasing their episodic Mix Series. Would the Internet have changed how things were, if it was around? "Dunno - maybe if it was, we could have pushed it further." Hot Cow shrugs, stubs out the second cigarette and looks down the road for a moment. His cigarette hand finds the whisky, and soon all is back to normal.

The next revelation is surprising: "We never gave up, you know - we went into remixing." Really? "Yeah, we did a few under assumed names for our mates. Hypurr was well into it, and it was great to get at the sound in a deeper level as technology caught up, you know what I mean?" HC readjusts his cap and fuzzily details a limited EP for a forgotten indie band called Drift, an unreleased De La Soul bootleg called "3" and some of Hypurr S.'s personal work on Gladys Knight: "Dark, brooding - pretty scary." Are they still around now? "I've no idea - I'd love to hear them again. We did this Drift song called Lonely Guitar - spent weeks but could never nail it. One day we just removed most of the lyrics, sped it up, added breaks, Hypurr whacked in a random classical section and we yelled 'Yeah, now we've fucking got it!'"

So what happened next? "Circumstances change, we had to concentrate on other shit for a while. Over ten years on, we're still concentrating on it," HC laughs and finally runs out of Marlboro, "though we still see each other around and we're still as mental as anything. He still hates 'Toytown'." He laughs again.

A few more minutes of escapades and anecdotes - "Hypurr nearly killed me once with some flying vinyl while he was experimenting with spinning 12"s on a biro" - it looks like our time is up as HC flings a tenner on the deck and heads off in search of some cigarettes. Before he leaves, I ask whether 15 years on they'd be up for starting another musical revolution: "Yeah, sure we would," he grins, "I'm just waiting for Hypurr to phone up and say 'Now is the time.'"