''LIKE ANY DJ, YOU SHOULD BE YOUR OWN FAVOURITE DJ, YOU SHOULD PLAY YOUR OWN FAVOURITE MUSIC.''



 

 

So Jay, tell me how did you initially get into electronic music in general?

When I was about 14 or 15, I met this guy Neidel Crisan, he was a house music DJ in Atlanta. We actually met through playing competitive Street Fighter, which I was playing quite seriously at the time. So we met, and we were actually heading to a tournament at one time, and he put on a CD of Mark Farina's Mushroom Jazz or some DJ Krush or something like that, good downtempo hip hop. I was really into hip hop at the time, but I never really heard anything like that, so that kind of intrigued me, I suppose. He was also playing a lot of house music, so he ended up burning me a couple DVDs, a bunch of albums. Mostly west coast stuff – People Under The Stairs, Om Records, Mark Farina, Soulstice and from there I just kept on discovering. I met this guy named Shane Schaetz on mIRC and he kind of schooled me more so on boogie, 80s music, as well as broken beat and nu-jazz.

How would you describe you deejaying style? Do you play vinyl?

In DC, a lot of places will only have turntables, so I do play a lot of vinyl. In fact, my ideal setup is CDJs and turntables, because I play a lot of digital stuff, too. As far as style goes – one thing that's really important to me is playing things I don't get bored by. I get bored really quickly, especially with a lot of electronic music, because it tends to be just so functional and repetitive. I don't really like that, I come from a listening to music background as opposed to just looking at something as a DJ tool. So it's very important to me that all the music that I play is something that's interesting for me to listen to.

Which are the artists that have shaped your musical taste?

This guy named Kaidi Tatham, he was in this broken beat group called Bugz In The Attic. He's from West London. In fact, when broken beat was in full swing, he was one of the major players in that. This guy, was a synth god. He could play anything with a keyboard. But he just really imbued a sense of soul in anything he put his hands on; he collaborates with a lot of different artists but you can always tell his touch. That was really inspiring to me – his rhythms are very funky but still complex, and his melodies and harmonies are off the charts. But as far as house music goes – Larry Heard / Mr. Fingers, Theo Parrish, Omar-S. Marcellus Pittman is a huge influence on me, he doesn't necessarily get a lot of the credit that other big names do, but I'm a huge fan of his stuff. I'm really inspired by a lots of different things, not just house music: post-punk, hip hop... Andrés is another one: I'm very fascinated by the combination between hip hop and house - that middle ground, I suppose. I like things with a lot of swing in them, it's like trying to apply J Dilla's approach to rhythm to house songs.

Andrés was the one I first thought of when I first heard your mixes and your music; this fusion of hip hop and house music and sampling methods that poured into techno, like Shake's example, were also very evident.

Yeah, I'm really into a lot of the aesthetics of 90s hip hop music, as far as it being raw, soulful, and having a lot of body moving swing and rhythm to it – I think of that when I think of dance music. So I just try to apply that into a more club-oriented sound.

You released two tracks for Kyle Hall's Wild Oats. How did this come about?

We've been friends for a while. I initially met him on Facebook in 2008, when Worx Of Art came out. Just listening to his music, I could tell we had similar ideas about the way dance music should sound. He was into a lot of jazzier, complex rhythms in general and I was really into that, too. So we started talking and sharing music. I was really into the broken beat thing at the time, and he wasn't so aware of a lot of that stuff so I kind of showed him artists I was into, like Kaidi Tatham and so on. From there, we just stayed friends. He played in Washington, DC about couple of months after we initially met on Facebook. That's when I met him for the first time. I've been working on my music, too but I wasn't taking it very seriously, I suppose. But I showed him a couple of things I was working on and he was very excited by them. Hopefully some other stuff will be coming out maybe this year, if I finish it.

Do you play the keyboard?

The next thing that's coming out is going to be on this record label called Ander-Traxx from Glasgow. And that's not sample-based at all, but everything is programmed by me. It's not previously recorded music or anything like that. I really do enjoy the texture of a lot sample-based music, but at the same time I'd like to explore more original sounds. So I'm kind of forced to some degree to dabble on the keyboard. I'm not really that good at it actually, but I get around – I know what sounds good.

You also have your own record label Must Have Records.

Yeah, I'm super-excited about that – the reception has been way way beyond anything I could've expected. We'll be actually doing a small repress. That came about before the Wild Oats thing, actually, but it took a while. The retail one came out last week and it's doing pretty well on various websites, so I'm feeling good about that. It's a Finnish producer named Saine. He has a style I like to call modern deep – it's kind of like hip hop/house fusion with a modern touch. It definitely sounds like something new.

You mentioned a lot of house and broken beat influences. In your opinion, where is your place in this territory?

I'm not sure, I would describe my stuff as soulful, raw & swingy. I see myself as a bit of an outsider. Even though the Detroit guys have been luckily very supportive of what I do, I'm not from Detroit. It's been nice that other people have been accepting of what I do, even though I'm not necessarily coming from that angle, specifically. As far as in DC goes, this guy Andrew Field-Pickering is probably my closest musical compatriot, locally. He's into a lot of weirder and deeper house stuff and a lot of classic stuff. He runs a label called Future Times, and he's in a group, Beautiful Swimmers, with Ari Goldman, and Andrew also produces solo as Maxmillion Dunbar. But yeah, I see myself a bit of an outsider, I like pop music and a lot of things that people who are into underground house apparently aren't supposed to like or they never included in their sets. I guess I like stuff that's accessible, but at the same time underground, so I don't know what you would call that [laughs].

I find it interesting that you mentioned Max D of Future Times. I first heard of him through hip hop. It seems that you guys from DC started producing hip hop and then progressed to house, am I right?

Andrew's story is a little unique. In DC, there was a really large punk and hardcore thing going on at the time when he was coming up. So he actually doesn't necessarily come from just hip hop, he has a pretty diverse background; he was really into ambient and world music, and also straight rock and punk and hardcore stuff. And then later on he got into hip hop, and then some boogie and house. He's got a pretty diverse history, but yeah, I think the meeting point we come together is dance music via hip hop.

What do you have planned for this year?

I mentioned the thing coming out on Ander-Traxx, so hopefully that will be out pretty soon. The next release on Must Have Records I'm really excited about is a Melbourne-based artist, his name's Julien Love. He produces really brilliant boogie and house stuff. I'm really fortunate to put out some of his music, this will actually going to be his first solo EP. It's going to be big. I'm really looking forward to that, and hopefully put out some of my own stuff, too. I'm going to Detroit soon to work with Kyle [Hall] on some stuff that we might want to put out. I'm kind of busy with school, but hopefully new stuff will be coming out in the pipeline.

You've prepared a mix for Radio Student, what's the message?

I wanted to play some songs I haven't really played in a mix. But also, I wanted it to be more radio-friendly; something that I would like to hear on the radio, that would catch my ear if I were just a casual listener, not necessarily a deep house-head, or a hip-hop head. Music that doesn't cleanly fit into any sort of genre, just good music. I actually don't listen to that many DJ mixes, I just listen to my own. It's not really an ego thing, it's just that I usually play my own favourite music. Like any DJ, you should be your own favourite DJ, you should play your own favourite music.





Tracklist:

1. Fatima - Red Light [Eglo]

2. Fudge Fingas - Din Dins for Da Da [Prime Numbers]

3. Rollmottle - Take a Break (Maurice Fulton Remix) [Sonar Kollektiv]

4. Saine - Drifter [Must Have Records]

5. Andrés - Last Call for Alcohol [Mahogani]

6. The Urban Cru - Rock Praise (Chez Damier Classic Mix)

7. Vedomir - Bennie [Sound of Speed]

8. Toro Y Moi - I Can Get Love [Carpark]

9. Bogdan Irkük aka Bulgari - My Weakness [Rollerboys]

10. Osborne - Wait a Minute [Spectral Sound]

11. Nebraska - Further Listening [Down Low]