Hi Jason, how are you? How was your summer? Did you play at any special place or is there any gig you could point out?
Hello! I am doing great thanks. Summer has been amazing I am just finishing up at Sun And Bass festival in Sardinia and it has been an incredible week. Definitely one of the highlights of my year.
I know you produce music from the 90’s and you have a huge number of releases behind you. Where do you still take the inspiration for what you do?
My inspiration comes from several places. Sometimes from travel and actually getting away from the studio environment cant be inspiring. Sometimes listening to other producer’s works (Old and new) and sometimes making collaborations with other artists like Makoto which can be very inspiring and educational too.
On the other hand, is there something what drags you away from the production? Have you ever felt like you’ve had enough of drum’n’bass?
LOL I have that feeling all the time. I love to listen to other styles of music and really I never listen to drum and bass outside of the club / studio environment. If I am driving my car or cleaning my room etc I always love to listen to funk / soul / hip hop / jazz etc which again can be inspiring.
You are coming to Prague because of the Aquarian Dreams LP you made with Makoto. We have already asked him but we would rather hear it from both sides. How did it come together and how did the cooperation look like since you are both from a different part of the world…
Myself and Makoto have always worked well together since our first collaboration with DJ Marky and since then we have tried to work in the studio whenever he was in the UK. 3 years ago we got together and produced 4 tracks at my studio in the UK, Searchin’, Uplifter, Articulate and Simplicity and then after this we continued to work on more productions in my studio in the UK as well as doing some projects online between the UK and Japan. I had to take some time out to work on the We Gotcha album for Fats as well as my own album Revisited but at the same time we continued to work on the Aquarian Dreams album which we finally completed together in Makoto’s studio in Tokyo in December 2015.
We must admit that we really like the album. Do you guys plan any future cooperation together?
We are planning future colaborations in fact we will be working on new projects over the forthcoming month.
What Makoto’s track do you like the most? And what about yours, do you have any favourites?
My favourite Makoto track has to be Golden Girl it’s one of my all time favourite tracks. As for my own it’s hard to say but from a musical point it would have to be “Lucid” by Sci-Clone which is a very personal track to me and something that made me overcome a big obstacle in my life. Sci-Clone is a collaboration between myself and New Zealand based Jazz musician Nathan Haines.
How is drum’n’bass doing in the UK? Have you felt any major change since you started with it?
I’ve never been one to play much in the UK most of my work has been overseas so it’s hard to comment on that. I would say we still have a very healthy Drum & Bass scene in London but a lot of good venues are being closed down which is a shame but we still have Fabric which is key to the Drum & Bass scene in London.
We always search for new names in the drum’n’bass genre, do you have any newcomers which you could suggest to us?
I would say guys like Philth, Bredren, Jaybee, Mr Explicit and Joakuim are sending me a lot of good music right now but these guys are not really new to the scene in my eyes. in general that’s a hard question for me to answer because for me I’ve not seen many breakthrough artists this year.
We are not sure now but have you ever been to Prague before? Is there anything you are particularly looking forward to?
Makoto tells me really good things about Roxy. Last year I played at Let It Roll festival and it was great and we did drive through Prague but I never got a chance to see anything but I would love to it looked like a beautiful city and I look forward to seeing more of it. I hear nothing but good things!
How is the set going to look like, are you guys planning to do back 2 back all the time or is there some special setup?
I’ll have to ask Makoto about that haha at the moment we do not have anything planned. Either way is fine with me!
Shadowbox is celebrating 16th birthday alongside your album launch, have you got any quick shout-outs for your our readers and listeners?
I would like to say thanks to all at Roxy for bringing us through to play and a shout to everyone in Prague / Czech Republic who has supported us in the past. Thanks.
Thanks for the interview, we are really looking forward to have you guys here in Roxy!
