Marking Time 

In the millennium of mp3 files, peer-to-peer-sharing and the like, the thriving presence of a niche record label that is a staple of its industry is no small feat. Later this year, The Herd will hit the road once more to mark ten years of touring, releasing and generally being at the forefront of Australian hip hop.

The hard yards this collective of musicians have completed is staggering; just attempting to consider the hurdles The Herd have overcome is mindblowing. Kenny Sabir, aka producer extraordinaire Traksewt, recently found some time to discuss all things new as well a little history of how the Elefant Traks juggernaut came to be.

2011 will go down as a big year for The Herd as well as Elefant Traks. Not only are they celebrating their tenth year of touring around Australia, there is also another album on the way, the recording of which Sabir describes as lengthy.
"This is the longest time we have spent making an actual album, we’ve been at it for more than a year now. Within The Herd, there are three main producers and right now we have a tracklist of about 30 which needs to be culled down to about 12. Out of that 30, I’d say roughly 25 have vocals done. About ten of those are pretty well structured and obviously the single is the only one to have been mixed and mastered so far."

'Sum Of It All', the new single from the collective, hit the airwaves in recent weeks despite being mastered as deadline rolled over. However, as Sabir points out, there was a little bit more to the situation than apparent apathy.
"That’s just late nights of hard work really. We had the deadline for the mix in mind but there ended up being a massive change in the last few days before that. We also had in mind the fact we haven’t performed live as a collective in more than a year and it’s been more than two years since our last album so we just wanted to make sure the new single is worthy, hence doing a re-work in the studio in the last couple of days."

With their previous albums, The Herd have always spent time in productive seclusion on the Central Coast. This was not the case for their latest effort, Sabir describing how the crew have taken full advantage of little nuances in the creative and recording process over the years.
"Theme-wise, the new record is quite different. It’s definitely more introspective, many of the songs have a very personalised feel to them. Musically, all our albums feature a highly varied range of instruments and this one is no different really, that is a very consistent thing.

“That was another change for this album. For the previous four, we have always spent some time up the coast. Whilst those were always great times and really beneficial to the creative process, we didn’t want that to be our magic ingredient that we always rely on. We wanted to change it up this time around so most of this album has been written and recorded in the Marrickville area. One thing that happens when you go up the coast is that you instantly feel a bit more relaxed amidst such beautiful scenery. So that conjures up different emotions from something composed around here in the industrial heartland."

When the music you make passes through at least ten different sets of hands and minds it’s easy to see how the process could disintegrate into the insinuations of its namesake: a rabble. Add to that, the new album has been in the works for more than a year and you have a complicated ship to steer to say the least. Sabir sagely breaks down how things tend to operate in the studio.
"For the music, I’ve always been one of the producers. Richie, Unkle Ho and I are generally the ones that produce our sound but others have contributed at various points along the way. It’s always us three that construct the foundations of the tracks. After that we get various people in to add their own flavours to parts - that’s the way that songs evolve and that’s the way our songs go a bit leftfield, obviously it wouldn’t be the same at all with just the one producer."

Ask the average fan who their preferred member of The Herd or Elefant Traks is, and the Traksewt name is unlikely to warrant a mention. These days Urthboy seems very adept at functioning as a charismatic representative of the Elefants, an ideal candidate as it were.

Sabir's invaluable work in administration and instrumentation is something that easily eludes the attention of most. When asked about his own musical background, Sabir is somewhat coy but provides some insights into the musical work ethic of today.
"I started playing when I was four, on a quarter-sized violin and then my parents got me on a piano when I was about six. From there I ended up doing various instruments such as: accordion, clarinet, drums, guitar etc. I was just loving everything at the time, I didn’t want to be left out of anything. After school, I joined a lo-fi rock band, playing drums for a couple of years. I got frustrated though because I wasn’t getting any credit for the creative process, things like melody and chords so I thought ‘hey, I can do all this myself’ and that was the birth of the label I guess, I was 22 at the time."

The Herd play The Zoo Friday, April 8.