For three decades, Kevin Martin has detonated the
British music scene with various apocalyptically noisy projects – all as a way to ‘get over the crushing tyranny of existence’
![‘I’m worshipping anger as a holy force’: dub, dancehall and destruction with the Bug](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/65fd33b43bf4ed9f113397454c6f45f5d259502c/0_365_5472_3283/master/5472.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=42b119d67b15d348c65226d19ed1eec6)
Kevin Martin’s industrial dancehall project the Bug started 20 years ago, in chaotic circumstances. As part of electronic duo Techno Animal, the producer was playing a show in Bern, Switzerland, and had just started his soundcheck when the ramshackle wood-framed arts complex was attacked by
Football hooligans, some brandishing incendiary devices.
Speaking to me from his home in
Brussels, the permanently baseball-capped Martin says: “It was like warfare. There were people barricading doors. Glass was shattering as concrete went through windows. We were shitting our pants: ‘Hold on, this is a wooden building – if one of those molotovs goes off, we’re chargrilled!’”