James Zabiela: dance music’s most skilled dj?
Reported by benz
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Submitted 23-08-06 02:10
It’s not often that you find an electronic music dj who will make Sasha — one of the greatest mixers ever — stand back and look on in awe. It’s also not often that Pioneer, one of the biggest dj technology companies in the world, asks a 20-something dj to help them design their top of the range equipment. Nor is it a regular occurrence for someone of Carl Cox’s stature to visit a Southampton nightclub to see another dj play.
It’s not surprising then that there is nothing regular or ordinary about James Zabiela the dj. Widely recognised as one of the most gifted jocks in the whole of dance music, he has earned the respect and admiration of his peers through his technical prowess, but not at the expense of a world-wide fan base, who are as much in love with his music as with his skills.
You’ve got to have both elements to become a world-beater of course. James’s groovy blend of bleepy electro, squelchy tech-house, rugged breaks and epic house music is a killer on its own, but paired with his amazing combination of scratching, cutting, looping and use of cutting-edge FX technology, it becomes something more than just a dj playing other people’s music. It’s like every track he plays goes through his own personal remix/re-edit machine.
Now with his production career well underway and looking very promising and a role developing new technology with the aforementioned Pioneer, Zabiela’s never looked or sounded better. He hasn't let it go to his head though — his manner is still gentle and humble and he's loving every minute of living his dream. I got the chance to speak with him on the phone and to delve deeper inside the mind of one of the scene's most impressive talents in the run up to his return to South West Four this weekend.
You’ve been working with Pioneer on some of their new products . . . this must have been a dream come true for you no?
Oh yeah, it was amazing for sure. It’s like you say — it was a total dream come true. At the moment I’m sat here surrounded by bays of CD players and test versions of FX units all around me. In fact I just yesterday updated the firmware in my CDJ-1000 Mk3 ‘cos it wasn’t working properly, so the fact that I can have some understanding now of how these things work, and get things changed and have some influence on how these things behave when they’re released, is amazing.
Take us through what you’ve been doing with them and the products you’ve helped to develop . . .
Well the main thing I worked on was the EFX-1000 and then I worked on the DJM-800 which is the mixer that just came out. I’m actually going to Japan to work on something else at the end of the month, but I’m not allowed to say what it is because they’re on the case about stuff like that. I remember I said something about the DJM-800 ages before it was announced and I got my wrists slapped for that . . . the men in black came round, ha ha!
How has your production been going? I see you have a track, ‘Weird Science’ on the new Renaissance compilation.
Yeah that’s right, that’s going to come out in September as a single, and I’ve done a different version of it as well. I’ve got a mix from Meat Katie, which is an electro-housey sort of thing ‘cos I think that’s what he’s doing at the moment. I got Glen from Future Funk Squad to do a mix ‘cos he’s a good friend of mine, so he just did a mix and it’s excellent — it’s sort of gnarly electro breaks but it’s quite dark. It’s got these sort of acid synths and stuff going through it, it’s probably my favourite version.
And then there’s another mix which my friend I went to school with has done which is sort of deep house I suppose . . . so anyway all those are going to come out in some form or another, I think it will probably be 3 or 4 tracks on the vinyl and then there will be a digital release for all the rest. Oh and there’s a Kriece remix as well, a guy from Australia, a really good producer.
Are you feeling generally quite confident when you’re in the studio now?
Erm no not really, but I guess I can tell when something sounds good and when it sounds crap, but I’m definitely not confident. I mean I wouldn’t want to sit in a room with BT or someone and make a track with him ‘cos I’d just be way out of my depth.
I like to work on my own and quite slowly ‘cos that way I can afford to mess up, and I can afford to try and get a riff or something right and just sit there playing with it all day if I wanted to, and I don’t have to answer to anyone. So yeah, I’m not confident but I’ll keep going at something ‘til I get some sort of result.
Lee Burridge was recently quoted as saying that he basically stopped playing breaks as he feels that no-one is pushing the genre forward. What do you say to this? Do you think it necessarily matters if music isn’t always breaking boundaries?
I wouldn’t say that was necessarily true. I mean there’s still a lot of good breaks tracks around. People like Rennie Pilgrem are still there producing some real quality stuff. Breaks is a sort of genre where drum ‘n’ bass is included but then a lot of the sort of jazzy stuff like on F-Communications the French label is also included in there, so it depends on what you call breaks. I’d probably say I don’t play as much breaks as I did 5 years ago, but I think that’s just due to the volume of the breaks scene back then — there were just so many breaks tracks around. At the moment there’s loads of minimal techno around, so it just sort of goes in waves with whatever’s trendy and whatever’s popular at that time. But you know, I like a bit of everything, so I’m always gonna play some breaks, and some house, and some techno . . .
Who is still really doing it for you on a breakbeat front right now aside from Rennie Pilgrem?
I’ve got my CD wallet here, but I’m no good at remembering anything. What have we got . . . I like The Drumattic Twins, Aquasky and a lot of the 10Kilo stuff is quite cool as well. DJ Hal, he does some sort of weird percussive breaks stuff which is cool.
What about that raw kind of Evil Nine stuff with the live-sounding beats, are you into that sort of stuff?
Yeah I’m into some of it for sure, perhaps not all of it. Sometimes it gets a bit too rock ‘n’ roll for me heh heh, but I do like it.
So you’re definitely into the more electronic sound?
Ahm yeah I guess I am. But I like some of it. Like they [Evil Nine] did a remix of Future Funk Squad ‘Towards The Sun’ which I played for ages, and that was all live drums and live bass, and it sounded excellent. It’s just when it’s like loads and loads and loads of guitars and stuff . . . it just . . . I don’t know, .it just gets a bit noisy. But I love some of their stuff and I listened to their Fabric stuff the other day and it’s excellent.
You will once again be playing at London’s biggest dance music, South West Four, over the Bank Holiday weekend. How was it for you last year?
Last year for me it was my favourite festival of the year. It took me by surprise I guess, I didn’t know what to expect...I knew from the previous year it had been quite cool and stuff from Lee Burridge (who you mentioned) telling me about and and also Sasha. So I kind of showed up and there’s all these people in front of me and they were all really up for it...and I don’t know if you remember, it was a lovely day as well, and the vibe was just there, it was great. It was very professionally done as well, they had like different dj booths all on wheels which they’d wheel out for different djs, especially nowadays as djs have different technical ideas and stuff. It was excellent, I really really enjoyed it.
Do you think London could do with a few more big occasions along the lines of this festival? House/electro/techno/breaks events are generally kept quite intimate.
I dunno really. Where I’m from in Southampton, we don’t have many club nights, we’re not spoilt for choice. But in London, if you wanted to hear that type of music, you can go out any night of the week and find somewhere, and it would be pretty good. So I guess it must be harder to put that kind of event on in London. When they do Homelands or Hi-Fi down the road from meeveryone from Southampton goes ‘cos they’re sort of starved. Yeah I don’t know, if I was the promoter I’d probably do a couple a year and make them really good, rather than doing more of them.
You’re quite well known for coming up with all sorts of dj trickery. What was the last new dj trick you discovered/invented?
There’s a bunch of things I worked out how to do on the DJM-800, but obviously now I’ve got the hidden advantage of helping write the software that’s inside it. So I can get it to do things in favour of the way that I want to use it. So, I’m probably going to release a bunch of videos on my website at the moment.
And finally, a sensitive subject for you: what do you make of the latest series of Dr. Who??
You know what, I thought the first episode was crap, and I thought the same in the first [new] series as well; it was almost like they tried too hard in the pilots. And then the series went on and it got better and better, I think; I quite enjoyed it. There was one two-partner in the middle that was ace, which was about this black hole and Satan and stuff. It was really dark, and I just wish we could see more of that, and also it had the doctor on his own without Billie Piper all the way through, so it was nice to sort of discover his character a bit more.
So it definitely gets the Zabiela seal of approval?
It would have to be pretty crap for me not to like it! I’m a huge Doctor Who fan, it’s
like even with the hardcore Star Wars fans who won’t admit that The Phantom Menace is a pile of poo, it’s kind of that type of thing. They’ll stand by it religiously no matter what. Ha ha!
Well thanks very much for your time James and hopefully see you down at South West Four!
Yup, thanks very much!
Photos courtesy of James Zabiela and South West Four. Not to be reproduced without permission.
South West Four
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On:
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Saturday 26th August 2006
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At:
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Clapham Common [map]
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From:
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12pm - 9pm
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Cost:
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£25 Early Bird Tickets SOLD OUT / £30 Others
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Website:
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www.southwestfour.com
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Ticket Info:
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As you may have already heard, the Early Bird Tickets for both days of this summer’s Metro Weekender have SOLD OUT in record time. Demand for this year’s two day event has soared to new heights and we’re extremely pleased to be able to offer you a limited number of JOINT WEEKEND TICKETS to both SOUTH WEST FOUR and GET LOADED IN THE PARK for the very first time. Joint Tickets are priced £55 (+BF) and can be bought exclusively from Ticketmaster, see below link or 08709 030 150
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Buy Online:
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Click here to buy tickets
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More:
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This summer’s 10,000 capacity Main Stage Outdoor Arena will play host to the legendary Carl Cox & Friends! Carl enjoyed last summer’s event so much he asked to return to headline 2006! Joining Carl will be the man responsible for kick-starting club culture in the UK Paul Oakenfold alongside Bedrock main man John Digweed, recent winner of the best European DJ at this year’s Winter Music Conference Sander Kleinenberg (live!) breakbeat heroes Stanton Warriors, James Zabiela (also returning fort his second year) and hot new DJ talent Desyn Masiello!
Arena Two ‘Essential London in association with Dig Deeper, Harlem Nights and Type’ will be hosted by one of the most influential men in dance music today Pete Tong. Pete’s Friday night ‘Essential Selection’ on Radio 1 is the definitive guide to what’s hot in dance music and has been broadcasting every week since 1991! Joining Pete will be Harlem Nights boss Steve Lawler, ex Radio 1 and Type promoter Seb Fontaine, Danny Howells, No.1 dance act The Shapeshifters who will be performing Live (UK Exclusive!) and Nic Fanciulli.
Finally Arena Three hosted by London’s leading club events HeatUK, Serious and The Gallery ups the tempo (only slightly this year!) featuring Radio 1 DJ and boss of the Serious World empire Judge Jules, Italian techno legend that is Mauro Picotto, our third Radio 1 DJ Fergie alongside Gallery resident Tall Paul plus the UK’s leading Trance DJs Ian Betts and Matt Hardwick plus fast rising Dutch tech trance superstar Sander Van Doorn.
http://www.metroweekender.com/
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Flyer:
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