If bass has a cultural ambassador, it’s Mary Anne Hobbs. While she is a resident of the U.K., Hobbs has brought innovative electronic sounds to all corners of the globe thanks to her BBC radio show, which is devoted to all things dark and speaker-cone bursting. Via the BBC, Hobbs has championed the likes of English dubstep hero Burial and Los Angeles’ beat weirdo Flying Lotus, giving them the first showcase that led to their worldwide notoriety. Hobbs has also curated a stage at the famous Barcelona-based music festival Sonar, giving international crowds their first tastes of, say, Joker and Gaslamp Killer. She’s also starting a full U.S. tour starting September 10th, another brick in the road on her path to becoming an internationally renowned superstar DJ.

Best of all, Hobbs’ fame is built not on cheesy anthems but her brave championing of the most experimental sounds. Hobbs’ mix CD releases have also proven to be the lightning rod for these most adventurous sonics: her first, Warrior Dubz, provided the jump-off for dubstep to gain mass appeal, and her latest, Wild Angels (both released on the great Planet Mu label) continues the tradition, with even greater stylistic breadth. Featuring artists as diverse as Hudson Mohawk, Rustie, and Nosaj Thing (as well as Darkstar’s brilliantly fragmented riff on Radiohead’s “Videotape”), Wild Angels points the way forward for new, dark sounds.

Much of Hobbs’ brilliant ability to perceive all the dimensions of a music scene well before anyone’s even noticed it stems from the varied nature of her background. Throughout her career, she’s been a journalist, a heavy metal fanatic, on television, and so on, in addition to being a DJ. And speaking of Wild Angels – well, Hobbs has enough leathers and bikes to join for the Hell’s Angels: she’s been a motorcycle enthusiast since her youth, and has even done TV specials revolving around her two-wheel obsession. Kspace chats with the brilliant Ms. Hobbs about what’s revving her motor, from music to sport and beyond…

Kspace: Where are you based these days?

Mary Anne Hobbs: I live in the north of England, in Sheffield. I lived in London for 25 years, and I still grab my ipod and Mac, jump on the train and do my show live there once a week; there’s no denying there’s a fantastic, vibrant scene there. But in Sheffield, there’s a different attitude and grit—a different type of reality and warmth. The city has an incredible history – it’s the home of Warp records! There’s so much happening there with the next generation of bassline house makers People like Toddla T are really putting fresh takes on that sound and scene.

Kspace: How have you seen the various mutations of bass-driven electronic music turn into a global concern?

MAH: I think what’s interesting is that, in the last couple year, there’s been a quantum shift in the way the sound now permeates every corner of globe. Barriers are evaporating between different genres. People don’t live in genre ghettos anymore they way they were punk, mod or metal and wore colors proudly back in the day. One of the beauties of globalization is that it’s brought people together from every far flung corner. It’s fantastic, the symbiotic ideas: there’s so much vibrant energy in the states, especially with Flying Lotus and Low End Theory, and then there’s also Kode9 and Hyperdub in the U.K. People are drawn to the primal unique energy that’s in music, not
genre in the old fashioned way.

Kspace: How do you find new sounds?

MAH: I live almost exclusively in a virtual bubble online, be it soundcloud or myspace. I’m always cleaning out my in-boxes for some incredible music, always posting on twitter. My greatest relationships are virtual, with people halfway around world. But then playing places like Sonar and Low End Theory, you start craving human contact in a human space again. I can get trapped in a virtual bubble, flinging the show out into the ether every week, but then it’s doubly exciting playing Low End Theory and getting a real response from the crowd.

Kspace: What’s been your relationship with the U.S.? Why come over now to do a full DJ tour?

MAH: When I was touring America back in the day, with Motley Crue as a journalist, Tommy Lee had a very serious discussion about building rollercoaster around the venues he was performing in – to him, it seemed like a perfectly legitimate next step! But me going to America to tour as a dj for the first time – I’m so excited to do this. Before, I had no idea what to expect: I put together my first “West Coast Rocks” show to see what you guys had got going over there. I’d heard about the famous Los Angeles Low End Theory party from Gaslamp Killer and Flying Lotus: it’s like Forward in London, the same kind of family and community. Right then, I decided I need to go there and check it out, and dive into this world. People said, “Can you knock out a guest dj set?” I agreed to do it as a bit of fun really, but the reaction I got in blew my mind! It fulfilled the dreams I had as a 16 year old!

Kspace: How did you make the transition from radio to club DJ?

MAH: Since I released the Warrior Dubz compilation, people started saying “Why don’t you play out?” I had to learn double quick! Kode 9 has had 20 years, I’ve only had two! But right now, there are no rules. The whole of the Low End Theory camp have just freed people to do anything you like and just tear up sounds.

Kspace: What’s the story with your new mix CD, Wild Angels?

MAH: It’s kind of interesting – it’s been a mammoth nine-month process, almost like a pregnancy! What’s challenging is I’ve tried with this release to look at way pathways are leading beyond dubstep, techno, and hip hop. I tried to pick artists that are pioneering beyond core genres. It’s very difficult to second guess what will work in the future: hopefully it will really touch people and capture their imaginations. There was a moment when there were very tight parameters, and artists couldn’t bring in other influences. Now there are no barriers, and that’s what I tried to capture with Wild Angels.

Kspace: You first got your start writing about heavy metal? How does that relate to what you do now?

MAH: Mastodon rule! And Mike Patton – I love everything he does! I loved Faith No More, of course. SunnO))) is completely amazing, too. I got Distance and Vex’d to do an amazing mix for my radio show, where they worked in shards of metal influence with more electronic sounds. It was incredible! Really, I see the connection between metal and what I do now in one word: defiance, in a word. I read an amazing interview with Kode 9 in The Wire where he talked about being possessed with sound. I identified with that: I respond to that idea of sonic defiance. A lot of people have a similar progression. That spirit, that defiant energy pulses and courses through this type of sound. Hip hop, too, of course.

Kspace: In addition to your musical interests, you’re famed for your love of motorbikes – you even produced a motorcycle-driven TV show. How did you get into motorsports?

MAH: I used to ride my dad’s Puch moped around the orchard in my school uniform as a kid. Then when I turned sixteen, I asked him to give it to me as a birthday present. It was a rusty yellow heap of junk. I stripped it down and painted it black: it had 2 gears and a top speed of about 35 miles per hour, if you were going down a steep hill lying flat on the tank with a decent tail wind behind you…. I lived in a tiny village with about 1 bus a week out of there, so it gave me my first real taste of freedom.

Kspace: What’s your current ride?

MAH: A Triumph Speed Triple.

Kspace: How did your motorcycle TV show come about?

MAH: Mary Anne’s Bikes was the best thing I’ve ever done on TV! We went to India, Russia, Japan, America, all over Europe and the UK and shot 72 stories about the most extraordinary bike obsessives and their beloved machines: everyone from the Bozazuku gangs who we met at the base of Mount Fuji at 5am, to scooter riding Japanese monks, to the Russian Nightwolves Club who live in an incredible lair built from reclaimed scrap metal that looks like it could be the set of Mad Max IV… We shot in the Nevada desert in 140 degree temperatures on a Harley Nightrain with no helmet!

Kspace: What other sports (extreme and otherwise) are you into?

MAH: I’d like to try base jumping! I used to skate as a little girl, too. I was once entered into a competition: I only agreed because you got a supa-fly glittering costume, the most glamorous thing I’d ever seen in my life at age 7. I practised the routine for months with an instructor but on the night I skated out onto the ice all alone, and in the glare of the spotlights my mind went completely blank. I was like Eminem with his abortive freestyle in the movie 8 Mile! So i just went ahead and did the most elaborate series of moves i knew all back- to-back…

Kspace: Does motorcycling and extreme sports follow your modus operandi of defiance?

MAH: Absolutely! I’m hoping Quentin Tarantino will recognize this and cast me as his motorcycle stunt girl when he finally makes his Fox Force 5 movie….