Origins Ayuli and Tambala first met as school children in an East London primary school. Ayuli is of
Nigerian descent, while Tambala was born to a
Malawian father and English mother. Both were involved in formative and culturally diverse music communities as adolescents, with Ayuli part of a
dub soundsystem and Tambala part of a
jazz-funk scene. Attending a party in 1986, Tambala was asked how he and Ayuli knew each other; he lied that the two played together in a band, going on to describe their sound as "a bit
Velvet Underground, a bit Cocteau Twins, a bit
Miles Davis, a bit
Joni Mitchell". A week later, the two were contacted by a label on the strength of Tambala's fabrication.
1986–1994: Recordings In 1986, A.R. Kane released their debut single "When You're Sad" on
One Little Indian. The duo were initially grouped with other "
noise pop" acts, and were hailed in the press as "the black
Jesus and Mary Chain", despite claiming to have never heard the work of that band. The next year the group signed to
4AD to release the follow-up 1987 EP
Lollita, which was produced by
Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins and saw the duo melding
dub production, guitar
feedback,
free jazz and studio experimentation. Writing for
Melody Maker, critic
Simon Reynolds described
69 as "
the outstanding record of '88." A.R Kane's next release was 1989's
Love-Sick EP, followed later that year by their second studio album,
"i", in which they engaged more overtly with pop, dance and electronic styles. The duo, dismissive of the wildly disparate attempts by journalists to categorise their unique sound, eventually began referring to their music as "
dreampop"; the term was widely adopted by music critics thereafter. Like its predecessor,
"i" was released to moderate sales figures and topped the independent charts. Also in 1989, Rough Trade released the
Pop EP. In the early 1990s, the band went on hiatus. During this time, Ayuli and Tambala founded the label H.ark and released EPs by acts such as Papa Sprain and
Butterfly Child. The duo ended their hiatus thereafter to record a follow-up album,
New Clear Child (1994), and then dissolved following its release.
1994–2014: Post-breakup Following the dissolution of A.R. Kane, Tambala made ambient- and dub-based music with his sister Maggie under the alias Sufi and released the 1995 album ''Life's Rising'' on
Caroline Records. Tambala serves as head of new media for
Ministry of Sound, and previously worked for
Virgin Digital in non-musical roles. He has also recorded as MusicOne. Ayuli was known to be a museum curator in the US. He put out releases under the name Alex!. In 2006, Ayuli contributed vocals to two tracks ("Soulsong" and "Passage") on the album
Primario by the Static Discos artist Fax, and also appeared on Fax's album
Zig Zag. Ayuli appeared in
Beautiful Noise, a documentary on the
shoegazing music scene of the 1990s A.R. Kane's first two albums were reissued in the US by One Little Indian in 2004, and
New Clear Child was reissued by 3rd Stone in 2000.
Complete Singles Collection, a compilation of the group's EPs and singles, was released in 2012.
2015-present: Reformation and spinoff as Jübl In 2015, it was announced by Tambala that a quasi-reformation of A.R. Kane, bringing together new and old collaborators, would be taking place that year under the name #A.R.Kane and without the involvement of Ayuli. In 2018, the revived band (featuring Rudi and Maggie Tambala plus guitarist Andy Taylor) renamed itself Jübl as part of a "forward-thinking rebrand". Rudi commented "I wanted to do something for the 30th anniversary (of
69), to give back to people some of the feeling they have shared with us, and to mark the moment. We discussed remasters, t-shirts, box-sets, re-recording some of the tracks, concerts, re-mixing the entire LP, and so on, but there were ownership and rights issues that became impenetrable barriers, so I just kinda gave up. Then one morning in May I just thought "Fuck it, it's a month away, just get the fuck out of bed and do something." Over coffee I realised that we could only move forward and be free from the nonsense by renaming the band, hence "Jübl". From that moment on everything just clicked into place. The three of us have been performing as A.R. Kane since 2016, and writing new songs too, so the material was there, we just had to make that final push." Following the name change, Jübl issued two singles - "Thinking Sweet" (in June 2018) and "Quiet Sun Slips Over" (in June 2019), both of which would later appear on their first album under the new name,
DNA Cowboys, released independently on 1 September 2019. In 2023 A.R. Kane released a limited-edition vinyl boxset
A.R. Kive containing remastered versions of the
69 and
"i" LPs and the
Up Home! EP (all originally released by Rough Trade from 1988
–89) plus new remixes by artists including Slowdive. Coinciding with this release, Tambala played two live dates as A.R. Kane at
The Social and
Cafe Oto in London. The line-up for these shows included Maggie Tambala and Budgie on clarinet, credited by Tambala as the player on 'The Sun Falls Into The Sea'. ==Legacy and influence==