Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: Rob Dougan (1995)
Mo’ Wax was a record label started by James Lavelle in 1992, which closed about ten years later. Initially they released 12" singles and licensed a compilation from Japan of Japanese Hip Hop, until 1994 when they began releasing albums of their artists original work. While some of these artists such as DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, and Money Mark continued releasing music after Mo’ Wax closed, others have seemingly disappeared from the music scene. In this series I will look at each artist on Mo’ Wax and try to find out where are they now…
Rob Dougan was born in Australia where he met producer Roland Armstrong (aka Rollo), and they began working on music together. Later when they were both living in London they teamed up again, remixing and producing House music under the names Dignity, One Tribe, Our Tribe, Rollo & Rob D, and Sphinx. Several of their releases made it in to the UK Charts, including One Tribe, Our Tribe, and Sphinx, but the pair parted ways around 1995 as Rollo was now producing for Faithless, and Dougan was working on his solo career.
In 1994 Dougan released Hard Times as Rob D. This 12" was his first solo work and was followed by Clubbed To Death in 1995, which was released by Mo’ Wax in three different editions, one CD and two 12"s.
Clubbed To Death (Compact Disc Experience) was released on CD with remixes from La Funk Mob, Carl Craig, and Preshay, as well as two mixes from Dougan, the Kurayamino Variation, and The First Mix. All of these different mixes were then spread across the two 12" releases with the second 12" also including an extra remix from The Wax Doctor. Each of the Mo’Wax editions featured artwork by Futura 2000, and sleeve design from Ben Drury and Will Bankhead who were in charge of the Mo’ Wax’s artistic direction at the time.
In September 1995 Clubbed To Death entered the UK Singles Chart and spent three weeks inside the Top 100, peaking at #82. It was awarded Single Of The Week in Melody Maker’s August 19 issue, and NME were also said to be fans. But it wasn’t for everyone as Muzik’s Will Ashon gave it 2/5, stating:
Sorry, but orchestral samples no longer make me think of noir thrillers so much as zit-ridden bedroom studio bods raiding their Ma’s “Hooked On Classics” CDs. The beats are good, but nowt else. Classic FM for the blank generation.
By 1996 Clubbed To Death had already begun appearing on compilations and mixes, and in 1997 the song was used in the soundtrack to a film called Clubbed To Death alongside another of Rob Dougan’s songs, Furious Angels.
Furious Angels was then released as Dougan’s next single in 1998 by Cheeky Records, a label run by his original collaborator Rollo. Muzik would review the song in their March 1998 issue, awarding it 7/10 and stating:
Currently a huge choon on both radio and dancefloors. “Furious Angels” updates Dougan’s genre-bending “Clubbed To Death”, a mesmeric slice of cinematic trip hop he recorded as Rob D for Mo’Wax in 1995. There’s an obligatory Rollo mix plus a sparse ’n’ funky take by Skint’s Midfield General, but head straight for the original for the real deal in moody dancefloor dynamics.
Muzik also featured a guest review by producer Howie B, who arwarded Furious Angels a score of 8/10 and called it “a stonker.” The song was a minor hit, and entered the UK Singles Chart for one week reaching #62.
Even with great reviews and the chart appearances of his two singles, Rob Dougan would still later claim that only six copies of Clubbed To Death were actually sold when it had originally been released. But at least one of these copies was bought by Jason Bentley who was later working as music supervisor for a film called The Matrix. He then gave the films’ directors, the Wakowskis, a copy of Clubbed To Death, and in 1999 the Kurayamino Mix was included in the film and its soundtrack.
The Matrix became one of the biggest films of 1999. Initially the #1 domestic release in the USA for several weeks following its March 31st debut, it became the #3 top film at the international box office in 1999, behind Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, and The Sixth Sense.
The soundtrack was also released in March 1999 and in the USA it sold one million units by August after peaking at #7 in the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart, with over 1.46 million copies sold as of 2002. In the UK the album peaked at #16 in the Official Compilations Chart Top 100, and had sold over 100,000 copies by April 2000.
Following Clubbed To Death’s use in The Matrix, Rob Dougan was flown to LA to meet with the Wachowskis and The Matrix’s composer Don Davis, where he was asked to contribute to part of their new project The Animatrix, an animated series of short films set within The Matrix universe. Dougan was asked to collaborate with Davis on a piece for the short called Final Flight of the Osiris. He explained to IGN:
They said ‘Can you collaborate with him?’ And I said ‘How are we gonna do that?’ And Don said ‘Well, maybe if you do some beats I can write some orchestral music over the top.’ And I said ‘Surely you’ve got drummers in LA [laughs]. Surely, just get a drummer and they’ll do a great beat.’ So we didn’t end up doing that, which is a shame actually because I really admire Don Davis.
Rob Dougan was then invited back to contribute music for The Matrix sequels, and he composed a new piece called Chateau, which featured alongside Furious Angels on The Matrix Reloaded soundtrack in 2003. Another of his song I’m Not Driving Anymore was included in the films trailer, and some remixes of Clubbed To Death appeared in 2003’s Enter The Matrix video game.
Furious Angels became the title of Dougan’s debut album which he released in 2001, and which he had been fine tuning since his time at Mo’ Wax, with the album described as “currently going through the last stages of production” in 1996. Rob Dougan explained at the time that he was struggling to perfect the sound he was searching for, telling The Fly:
A lot of people just go in and work quickly, but I’m always worrying about whether the work I’m doing is of any worth. I get really worried if it’s going to be disposable. I fret about it for days and days.
Furious Angels features a mixture of strings, beats, and vocals, with some copies including a second disc of instrumentals, and it collected the previously released Furious Angels, I’m Not Driving Anymore, and Clubbed To Death. Another notable inclusion was Clubbed To Death 2 as a bonus track, which had previously been inlcuded on a mix by James Lavelle in 1996, and later in 2019 James Lavelle played a demo of the song during his radio show and explained the song had been intended as a follow up to 1995’s Clubbed To Death single. It is unclear why it was never released, though perhaps Dougan’s perfectionism was partly to blame.
In 2002 following the release of his album, Clubbed To Death was re-released and re-entered the UK Singles Chart, spending three weeks inside the Top 100, and peaking at #24. The song also entered the UK Dance Singles Chart Top 40 where it peaked at #2.
While it didn’t make a splash in the charts, only reaching #16 in Billboards Top Dance/Electronic Albums, and not charting at all in the UK, Dougan’s album Furious Angels received good reviews. Billboard stated “The album is epic, haunting, and rather gorgeous”, and CMJ likened Dougan’s voice to Neil Diamond, and felt the mix of beats and strings would allow the album to have wide appeal. Film Score Monthly gave it 3/5 while The List awarded the album 4/5 and likened it to Tom Waits, Massive Attack, and DJ Krush.
Outside of his solo career in 1996 Dougan worked with Mo’ Wax again when he produced Andrea Parker’s The Rocking Chair, and James Lavelle had asked Dougan to remix Air’s Modular Mix for Mo’ Wax in 1996, but he wasn’t able to at the time. Outside of Mo’ Wax, in 1997 Dougan produced Jump for Kylie Minogue, and Too Lost In You for The Sugarbabes which appeared in the 2003 film Love Actually. This was his last production credit for a while, though he did report to be working with The Sugarbabes again in 2006, but nothing was released.
In 2015 Dougan returned to music after a ten year break, having moved to Southern France to work on a vineyard. His EP The 22nd Sunday In Ordinary Time Sessions was released online in May 2015 and was followed by Misc. Sessions in 2016, before selections from both EPs were collected in 2018 on the compilation Films: Past and Future, alongside instrumentals from Furious Angels.
Unfortunately the compilation was originally made available through PledgeMusic, a service similar to crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter which allowed fans to pledge money towards a musicians future projects. Pledge went bankrupt and many artists were never paid the money they were pledged, and fans were unable to get refunds. This led to Dougan losing money and paying for the entire project himself, which led to delays shipping the final release to fans around the world.
2019 saw the release of another EP, The Life Of The World To Come, which was then collected together with the previous two EPs onto a new compilation titled The Opening Trilogy. The new compilation was released in multiple formats, including as a triple vinyl set, and as a book with a digital download of the music.
In March 2020 Rob Dougan announced an upcoming release titled Furious Angels (revisited). He also has promised a new release for Clubbed To Death 2, which has previously only been available on some editions of his debut album as a bonus track. The song is currently available now to members of Dougan’s website which requires an annual subscription to access behind the scenes and exclusive content.
The original Clubbed To Death has remained a popular song, appearing in films and advertisements long since its first appearance on Mo’ Wax. Regarding Mo’ Wax Rob Dougan has continued to have great things to say, and in 2015 wrote about his fond memories with the label:
For me, Mowax has to be one of the greatest labels of all time, and James Lavelle the most inspiring and inspired of label bosses. He was only twenty or so, and would fire out hand-scrawled faxes, day and night, to the great and good, the obscure and the overlooked, pushing on.
While we await to hear further details of what Rob Dougan has planned for his next release, he can be assured that he holds a special place in many people’s music collections, from Mo’ Wax, The Matrix, and beyond.
Updated January 23 2021: I added a quote from Dougan in 1996 talking about working on his album.
