There’s a quiet power in rediscovery. Some music doesn’t just endure; it pulses beneath the surface. A.R Kane were one of those bands. This week on Lost and Sound, I had the honor of sitting down with Rudy Tambala, one-half of the groundbreaking duo and also a key figure in the formative acid house/chart smashers M/A/R/R/S.
Rudy Tambala isn’t someone who shouts about legacy. But you can feel it in everything he says. Back in the mid-to-late ’80s, A.R Kane crafted sounds that were indescribable at the time—blurring post-punk guitars with dub’s spaciousness, the ethereal textures of dream pop, and rhythms that felt beamed in from a future club culture still in its infancy. Their debut album, 69, and its follow-up, “i”, eschewed the live band format for a studio playfulness that pointed to bedroom producers and Ableton a good decade before this would even start to become norm.
On the surface, AR Kane might not be a household name. But dig deeper, and their fingerprints are everywhere. You hear it in shoegaze, trip-hop, and the experimental corners of electronic music. The seeds of jungle, ambient, and post-rock are there too. These were records for outsiders, yet their influence seeps through so many of the sounds that defined the ’90s and beyond.
It’s easy to place AR Kane in the same breath as My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, or even Prince in the way they created entire worlds of sound. But there’s something so singular about their vision, it incorporated old films, literature and design concepts. Rudy spoke candidly about what it meant to exist in a space where commercial success wasn’t the goal, but creating something new—something honest—was everything.
This episode isn’t just about AR Kane’s legacy, though. It’s about the art of listening differently and I got the impression it’s clear that Rudy is no nostalgist. We talk about sonic boundaries, connecting this with both Marshall MacLuhan and, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know a food analogy or too.
Tune in to Lost and Sound this week to hear Rudy Tambala in his own words—reflecting on the past, navigating the present, and imagining the future of sound.
Rudy records now as Jübl, I think you could say AR Kane Mk 2, here’s the Bandcamp.
Up Home Collected by A.R. Kane on Bandcamp
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Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica
My BBC World Service radio documentary “The man who smuggled punk rock across the Berlin Wall” is available now on BBC Sounds. Click here to listen.
My book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culturet Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more.
Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins