Interview: Ishan Sound

“Whatever I’m doing I’ll always keep an element of dub influence in there,” says Chris Ebdon aka Ishan Sound. Pitched somewhere between digital dub reggae and the deepest 140 club tracks, his music has been supported by everyone from Iration Steppers to Digital Mystikz and Bristol icons Pinch, Peverelist and Stryda.

“I’m originally from Exeter and still live down there,” Chris explains, “although I’ve spent most of the last six years in Bristol. There’s a musical history, energy and commitment to the scene which is almost non-existent in my home town.” He’s a founder member of Young Echo, Bristol’s most prolific and influential electronic music collective. He describes them as “my immediate musical family”.

Young Echo began as “five of us sitting around a table playing each other music we loved, discovered or made…soon after that, friends started coming along to the sessions too…it got so lively that it just made sense to put it on as an event where we could use a proper soundsystem and give everyone more room to soak it all in.” With artists as diverse as Kahn and Neek, Vessel and Ossia involved, Young Echo’s radio shows and club nights at Exchange formed the nucleus of a new Bristol underground: one that embraces everything from grime and dub to experimental noise.

Chris first became known as a producer via his partnership with fellow Young Echo member Jabu (Amos Childs). “I started producing around the time I met Amos,” he says. “Although our styles are now very different, in the early days we used to release music together under the name Zhou with a couple of labels including A Future Without and Punch Drunk.” Their music was manna for dubstep purists, and has been compared to the earth-shattering early work of Loefah.

His solo work is steeped an older tradition, though – that of Jamaican soundsystem culture. While all British “bass music” owes a debt to reggae, Ishan Sound is a direct update of the UK roots template laid down by people like Jah Shaka. You only have to hear the charging Trojan – with its “chant down Babylon” vocal by Rider Shafique – to realise how immersed in that tradition Chris’s style is. Trojan, Clash of the Titans and last year’s self-titled double pack were all released by Ossia’s vinyl-only Peng Sound. Even his heavier tracks for Tectonic and ZamZam have a meditative feel though – their synthesised pipe strains recalling the echo-drenched melodica of Augustus Pablo. 

“My live sets consist of a mixing desk and lots of analogue effects, and often bring out the more dubwise sound,” says Chris, “whereas with vinyl/dubplate sets, I often play more heavyweight 140 stuff. It really depends on what feels appropriate for the crowd and venue.” He’s recently put out a pair of profile raising sets, both of which you can and should listen to on his Soundcloud. One was for Tom Ravenscroft at 6Music; the other for Fabriclive to promote his involvement in the launch events for Outlook Festival. The Bristol launch is at Motion and features Digital Mystikz, among others: “It’s always a pleasure to perform alongside the likes of Mala and Coki. I recently played the London Outlook launch at Fabric with a similar lineup to this one. If that was anything to go by it’s going to be a big one!”

A new Ishan Sound 7″ called Rush On The Tonic dropped on ZamZam earlier this month, and it will be followed by collaborations with “new vocalists including Manonmars, so there’s a lot of different stuff from me to come this year.” There’s also more coming from Young Echo: “Considering the amount of tracks we make individually and collectively, we’ve only so far released a tiny amount of that, but that’s definitely about to change very soon.” If you haven’t investigated his music yet now looks like the time to do it.

Ishan Sound plays The Blast present Outlook Festival Launch Party, Motion, April 23.  Hear more at soundcloud.com/ishan-sound 

Photography by Khali Ackford