We met Tim Simenon a.k.a Bomb The Bass the other week following the release of his new album. He's a pretty low-key guy. He just likes to pioneer genres like trip-hop (paving the way for minor bands like Massive Attack and Portishead) and do remixes for pretty average artists like Neneh Cherry.

Hi Tim, what’s been going on? We haven't heard a new album in what, three years?

It’s taken me ten years to make this f*cking album. I started it in ’98, and if everything had gone to plan, I would have finished it then too. But you know, I had a couple of false starts here and there, and it finally got finished the way I wanted it to this year.

So does that make it a contemporary sound? Or is it of 'its time'?

The previous versions just didn’t feel right to me – I was just overwhelmed with the choice of software available, which I think we all are nowadays. So the idea was to strip it all down. The bulk of the new album is built on drum machines, keyboards and synthesisers. It has really simplified the whole production process and I think that’s what finished the album really.

So you’ve been commissioned to remix pretty much everyone, from Depeche Mode to Massive Attack – which is your personal favourite?

The one I did for Bjork of her Play Dead track I‘m really proud of. It has kinda stood the test of time as well. I just brought a beat and a bassline to what was previously an orchestral track. It sounded pretty different.

You’ve used some pretty alternative artwork as album art – what was your reason for putting William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch on it?

I always enjoyed the idea of how Burroughs worked, how he cut up words - that really random element of piecing things together. The same applies to music – as soon as things get habitual, they get boring. The element of chaos and randomness is something I like to seek in my music.

Do you think the Bomb the Bass sound is inherently early 90s and people are hooking back into that nostalgia? Or are you creating innovative music?

Definitely the earlier work is ‘of a period of time’, without a doubt. I listen to the first album, the first single; it sounds like ’88. But with this record it doesn’t sound like anything genre-related is going on.

About the whole revertion back to the 90’s - it is a period people are starting to appreciate again. Are you quite glad that’s happened because of its association with your music?

I don’t know – I was in Berlin the other day and a journalist there said the same thing. Younger DJs are grabbing old Bomb The Bass samples and using them in new music I’d never heard of them; literally young kids messing about. In Germany in generally, the sounds coming from there have always been impressive: Kan, Neu, Kraftwerk have all been major influences on me.

Check out the Bomb The Bass myspace.