NEW SPICE Darling adds some soul to the Herbaliser sound.

Photo: Eva Vermandel

Hip-hop–sampling producers don’t become full-blown soul bands overnight. But London’s Herbaliser increasingly has made use of live instrumentation on its left-of-center, brassed-up, cinematic hip-hop. The 2005 album Take London played like the soundtrack to a crime-caper flick—with ace rapping from guest MCs such as Roots Manuva. With a new album, Same As It Never Was, on the streets, a new singer and new label, the production duo has changed things up again. We called Ollie Teeba in anticipation of his DJ set Wednesday 6 at darkroom. We found him mellow, contemplative and thoroughly, well, herbal.

Time Out Chicago: Is there a new appreciation for soul music on Same As It Never Was?
Ollie Teeba: There’s a worldwide community that appreciates soul and funk, and always has. Plus you have the whole acid-jazz scene with bands like the Brand New Heavies—I mean, that was nearly 20 years ago! Soul and funk have always been part of our sound, as well as hip-hop and soundtrack music. When you make hip-hop, you’re always drawing from different places. So we’ve always made this kind of stuff, but we never really settled on a singer that we wanted to work with and put in the band. Then we met Jessica Darling and started working with her and recording these songs…then suddenly everyone’s back into soul again! So it’s worked out really well for us.

TOC: This new album is a little more playful than the last, isn’t it?
Ollie Teeba: We were in danger of becoming that sort of group that makes dark and eerie records all the time. But we like having a laugh, and people have a good time onstage. It’s not a somber experience. Aside from the music being different from what we usually do, our whole attitude and how we want people to perceive us—as a band rather than a duo—has changed.

TOC: Does it work to your advantage to be willing to mix things up?
Ollie Teeba: We try to do things here and there that people haven’t done before. For example, “Generals” was something no one had done before. We haven’t talked about this a whole lot, but I guess it’s okay to talk about by now. That track had five different MCs on it—but all of them were the rapper Jean Grae! It used her acting abilities as well as digital technology to render her voice in many different ways. As far as I’m aware, that is something that no one had done before.

TOC: “Just Won’t Stop” is about the state of the music industry. Is it optimistic or pessimistic?
Ollie Teeba: We work with people like Jean Grae who have skills, then let them do their thing. I guess the point the song is making is that things change, and you need to adapt or you could run into problems. I mean, look what happened to the dinosaurs. Well, a lot of people say they became birds…but I guess that’s beside the point. But basically, either you adapt or you die.

Ollie Teeba of the Herbaliser spins at darkroom, Wednesday 6.