"Welcome to the Freq Show," was one of the early Yohimbe Brothers tracks. That was my first totally successful jungle track," says Vernon. "That track, I'm really proud of. The whole Raymond Scott, cartoon thing was something I'd never really heard in drum 'n' bass, you know. I think of the extreme tempos and I start thinking of these like, wacky cartoon car chases, and Roadrunner. I grew up on Warner Bros. Cartoons. Actually, I had been turned on to jungle by Doug Wimbish, back in the '90s. Because of the whole Tackhead thing, Doug's been on the forefront of the electronic thing forever. I remember he stepped to me and he said, 'Yo, man, they got this music comin outta Bristol, YOU are gonna love this shit. They're calling it jungle.' And I remember going to Camden Lot and there was an outdoor store, where every week there was this cat that would play the latest jungle joints and people would literally gather around the store, and there was the latest by Peshay, boom, the latest by Goldie, boom. And people were like, 'Yo, I'll take two.' It was this incredible thing at that time. And through developments, people were coming along like Amon Tobin, and Metalheadz (Groove Rider, Goldie, etc.), Amity Trio, who I respect a great deal. And when Squarepusher came out, I said, 'Oh, See? See?'" [shakes his head] "Now, my first drum and bass beats were pitiful. But then I kind of figured it out. I started listening to 'Funky Drummer', again and again and I said, 'Oh! I get it,' you know? Because the basis of the whole thing is the 'Amen' break. It's so funny, we've heard it so often, you know, you roll your eyes, 'Oh that again.' But it's comforting in a way. You know you're hearing jungle when you hear the 'Amen' break. So I started listening to it from this deconstructionist point of view. I found that the things that I wanted to say with it, even though the influence of Squarepusher's in there, it's definitely got a different vibe." Logic's first reaction was to "bust out laughing. I was like, that's ill, that's out. [Vernon said he] was listening to Squarepusher and it had that vibe, but I was like, 'Wow, that's out — that's different.' It's definitely going to attract ears, people are going to be like, 'Whoa'."
Everything was recorded at the Dharmalab, which is the dining room of Reid's home, a Victorian house in Staten Island. "It's beautiful, because I live on a cul-de- sac, there's no through traffic. One thing that's great is my neighbors are situated in such a way I can play as loud as I want to, at any time, 'cause it [has] an earth basement, so it's really isolated. If you're playing really loud, you'll hear it from the street but I've never gotten a phone call. The thing that's cool about it is that everything sounds actual. Everything sounds very alive. The house is over a hundred years old." There's nothing permanent about the Dharmalab set up. Vernon keeps it modular in case different sessions require him to move things around. "No commercial facility could ever exist the way this thing does. The rooms aren't massive, but there are a lot of them. There's like a foyer where you walk in to the house which gets most of the work. I've recorded in my living room, off the foyer, in this office room, the basement, this little bathroom next to the Dharmalab. One space that we talked about recording is the attic. We were going to have to move everything. You need a video system [to monitor]. I'd have put like a camera system." Logic adds, "Yeah, trying to get the wires up there was just — That's where we were actually going to do the drums. We were trying to get the drums up there, but... " [throws up his hands] Vernon goes on, "It's recorded live, there's no soundproofing. Which is a dangerous thing cause you remember the birds," he says, turning to Logic, who tweets and laughs. "The birds seem to respond to singers. Or brass. [They] are the most mysterious thing because they'll be quiet, quiet, quiet, and you're getting ready to do a take, like I was recently recording Graham Haynes. We did a track for Logic's The Anomaly. One take, dadadadaDA. 'that's great' Cheep. Cheep cheep cheep. Yeah, it's good to have a sense of humor about it. And the church bells. The whole thing about the church bells, is they're great if you're doing like a murder ballad, or you're doing some kind of doom and gloom, dressed in black, gothic thing. [They] come in at the right time, you gotta use it, but other than that you have to wait till the church bells toll."
Though he's working on a smaller scale than in the big studios he had used in the past, Vernon credits his engineering knowledge to that experience: "A lot of this stuff I learned from working with Paul Hamingson and Ed Stasium [Tape Op #98], working on the Living Color records, watching hem mic things, you know. And Ron Saint Germain. I consider these guys my teachers, more than anything else. Watching how they would do things. You know, move the mic just 'that' far. The difference between using [one mic or another]. It's funny because you read a review of a microphone and they'll say 'this mic is good for this,' but not everything is good for everybody, like I one time was recording vocals and I had the [Neumann TLM103] and it didn't sound good. And this thing ALWAYS sounds good. On everything. And I had this Audio-Technica, this old 4030, and I was like, 'Lemme put this mic up.' And it sounded great. It's fuckin' weird."
The Yohimbes worked on their own for the most part, with advisory help from Rich Tizzoli, an engineer who Vernon says, "...really came through. He really turned me on to the ART stuff. The compressor and the mic pre. And you know he really helped me out, talking to me about recording issues and things like that. An unnamed collaborator on this, he's a good man." The liner notes also credit engineering to the "almost legendary" Isaac Indigo, whose role is difficult to pinpoint. "Isaac, he's kind of like the audio advisor. You need other sets of ears. He kept it from being too fusion, too. Almost legendary, because Isaac's like one of them Wil-o-the Wisp type of characters. He's kind of a knock-around guy, you know? He would come through, he was like, 'Yeah man, I like pop music.' And he'd walk away. And we'd say, 'What was that?' He reminds me of the rapper Sensationale, like, 'Excellence makes wack irrelevant.' He was like, 'Yohimbe Brothers, yeah. Yo, Him Be.'" This kind of esoteric commentary suggests the title "esoteric-nician. He's an esotericnician. That's what he's going to be on the next one, man. One day we're going to nail him, we gotta get Isaac in the studio, 'Isaac, just talk. Just tell us the story of your life.'"
