Jam Jarr is one-half Bakaman and one-half Rubix Qube. Half hip-hop, half trance but in no way a combination of the two. Jam Jarr is fresh, nu-age South African glitch come hop come dub come kwaito, with a full head of bass to keep the club hoppers happy.

“A spasm of electronic, a shiver of dirty, filthy, salt up your nose kinda bass. Jam Jarr is a glitch-rap duo made up of Soundproof and Bakaman, and they’re here to tear your eardrums asunder with a cache of tracks ranging from dubstep to glitch-hop, and all the other beat-stops in-between.”

Their debut EP, Fat Fruit, is due for release on African Dope tomorrow (Friday Sept. 10) and in a celebratory, ululating fashion we caught up with the two muso’s and gave them the ultimate question word: WHY?

Dont Party presents

Jam Jarr and The 5 WHY’s?

1. Why Jam Jarr?

We wanted a name that spoke to the no-holds barred nature of our music, as well as the gob-smacking potency of it, and the mixture of our two different, yet similar musical backgrounds. Jam Jar was the result, and for some extrra flavour, and extrra R. And now we arre Jam Jarr.

2. Why Fat Fruit?

First of all, Fat Fruit sounds Dope when you say it. It is fortunate enough to have the added quality of making sense. Basically, this EP is the first tangible piece of fruit from the tree we planted a year ago.. and the fruit is fat, bursting with flavour, and ready to be made into a Jam.

3. Why South Africa?

South Africa is obviously both of our home country, so naturally, we’re laying the roots here. Cape Town is the creative garden of Eden in this country of ours, and the quality, variety and accessibility of outstanding electronic music and it’s artists is always at your fingertips. Cape Town and South Africa will always be our home, we’re incredibly lucky to live here. We obviously have great ambition to perform overseas extensively, but there’s only one place we’re coming back to : ) Slaapstad.

4. Why African Dope?

African Dope is the Dopeness!! They are what opened my (Bakaman’s) eyes to ‘leftfield electronica’ that was happening in my very own country! I was blown away by the adventurous possibilities of music outside of the mainstream garbage. My saliva trail has led from those preparatory days to African Dope’s doorstep. It’s the perfect place for an artist to retain their creative liberty and be able to release the music internationally, digitally and physically. The African Dope name is strong, locally and abroad, and we’re proud to be associated with that name.

5. Why Music?

There was no other choice. Music called and neither of us have hung up the phone yet. If you want a life of financial security and solid future prospects, don’t pick up the microphone, and take your fingers off the decks. The digital age has made it all the easier for independent artists and labels to get their music out, but it’s also meant that music is usually lost in the sea of all the other crap that’s flying around, let alone the gargantuan quantities of music itself. Still. Some things are just too good to pass by, so here we are, riding the wave of digital uncertainty, and over-abundance. Godspeed to us all.

TAKE A LISTEN :: FAT FRUIT [the EP]

MORE?

• BUY the EP (african dope online)
• Jam Jarr facebook

We had a quick sit down with the JHB based Minimal-Tech duo Deadbeat FM, who have been featured on Dont Party quite a bit over the past year. These guys have been making waves both locally and abroad, and have had releases on UK based lot 49. Read about what makes these guys tick.

You guys both Dj’d previously under different names. What made you guys decide to start performing together?

We both played under different names for a while, (Shane still does). I guess we both just started listening to techno/minimal at the same time and decided to put an act together. The first few months were a bit hard cos nobody knew who we were and Joburg wasn’t quite used to the shit we were playing, but after a while we started tapping into the JHB tech scene and DBFM just grew from there.

Shane – You’re also a Psy-trance DJ and Producer how does this influence your sound when performing/producing as Deadbeat FM?

The two genres are similar in a few ways, so from a production point of view I’m still able to use some of the same techniques. You can definitely pick up a slight trance influence in some of our sounds.

Shane – It’s a common move for a lot of trance producers to make the transition from trance to minimal/tech, what made you decide to make the change?

I haven’t made a complete change from one to the other, I am still big into the trance act Deliriant and enjoy focusing on both. It’s nice to be able to explore different genres, and the tempo is a lot slower which allows for more of a groove and some different elements which you can’t really do in trance. Its something I think most music producers look for– variety.. you can’t keep making the same style of track over and over.

Piers – How was it making the transition from DJ’ing to producing – What hurdles did you encounter?

It was obviously quite hectic getting to know all the production software, Shane is pretty jacked when it comes to production so I’ve learned a lot from him over the years.

What gear/software do you use to produce your tracks

Where did the name Deadbeat FM originate?

You guys recently saw some international attention when you were announced as finalists in the Lot 49 competition. What did that do for you guys, has anything else transpired from that?

We got a lot of attention from that, both from a production and djing point of view. Since then we have released a couple more tracks on LOT49 and had offers from two more international labels based in the UK and Germany. But for now we are trying our best to get released on Iboga records, that’s our biggest goal.

How did it feel to have your tracks praised by artists like Meat Katie, Vandal, D-Nox etc?

It was awesome, we’ve been huge fans for years, its nice to know that they are following our stuff.

When can we expect to see an EP or album from you guys?

We have just released an EP on LOT49, it was a remix of a Kid Bluetrack called Bass Reflection. We also have a track coming out on aLOT49 anniversary compilation next month, keep an eye out for that.

What releases/remixes do you have coming up in the near future?

Besides for the LOT49 stuff, we’re almost done with a D-Nox & Beckersremix, so hopefully you’ll be hearing that soon!

We’ve featured a lot of JHB acts lately especially on our weekly MID.WEEK.MIX, there is a perception that the two cities are extremely different in the sound they produce and love. I know Cape Town seems to like a harder sound then our Northern counterparts. What’s your perception of the two cities?

Cape Town is much bigger into their trance and probably more open to different shit. It seems like the Haezer style electro is also doing really well there, but I’m not sure how people are taking to the whole techno vibe. It’s hard to say when we don’t live there, but the couple of gigs we’ve had there have gone down well. Joburg definitely has a market for our sound , but there’s a lot of people here into all sorts of different stuff so its hard to classify. There’s a lot of commercial shit here (which we aren’t the biggest fans of), but the techno scene seems to be doing pretty well too.

@Shane – You’ve experienced performing in both major South African cities and the different scenes in each. So is  it, Cape Town or JHB? also what makes these two cities so different?

My best trance gigs have been in Cape Town, the scene there is insane and growing by the week. My best techno gigs have been here in Jozi, although I think we could get something going for us in Cape Town if we lived there. So if I had to choose, definitely Cape Town.

So there you have it, still want more. Check out the links below for some of our past coverage.

LINKS

• Deadbeat FM – MID.WEEK.MIX – VOL 11 [Dont Party]
• Past Posts [Dont Party]
• Deadbeat FM on Facebook [CLICK]

Ill Gates is more a mentor than a musician. His outlook on life and music is so supportive and encouraging it instills confidence in me and many others who chose the chromatic scale as their desk-job. A well established and versatile DJ, producer, VJ and all-round music guru Dont Party had the absolute pleasure of interviewing this figurehead, and what began as a short interview turned into a 1 and a half hour phone interview! So let’s get to it:

Dont Party presents

the ill.gates interview

DP: I was introduced to you and your work through Bassnectar [click for our interview with him], and have been an avid fan ever since. You and him collaborate quite a lot together, how do you know eachother and how did bond between you and him form, are you guys from the same areas?

Ill: No, we live totally far apart. I live on the east coast of Canada, in the north where it’s cold and snowy all the time, and he lives in Berkeley, San Francisco. In 2002/3 I put out a record called ICE 9 and he liked it and played it when he was a breaks DJ. He then sought me out. It was really funny because I was producing some kind of psychedelic, tripped –out sort of breaksie stuff, and so was he, so then we got to talking and found out that we saw eye-to-eye on pretty much everything. He came to Toronto and stayed at my house and I’d stay with him when I was down there. This then leads to us doing tunes together; I even VJ’d for him for a while. It was a lot of fun, he’s probably my best friend.

DP: You said that you used to VJ for Bassnectar. So do you VJ for artists? And how do you incorporate all these elements into your shows?

Ill: Well I don’t actually VJ and DJ at the same time anymore; it’s either one or the other. You get what’s called ground-loop interference when you have two separate circuits for the audio and the video, therefore, you have to bring a ground-loop phase interrupter which is yet another adapter to lose and that much more to set up. I just hate it when night after night you are there in the beginning of the night to set up and at the end to clear up. I just taught myself how to do it because I wanted to have a little bit more control of the visual environment. But in the last couple of years music has really taken over, I don’t even have enough time to do my own web design or graphics anymore.

DP: In terms of your shows, with VJ’ing and DJing, creating more of a complete environment for your gigs, do you see these elements as really important to create a performance in a club? Do you still see visual work as really important in a gig?

Ill: Well I see it as very important, but it’s more important not to fuck it up. Basically everything has to be either excellent or transparent, if any element is noticeably bad it can ruin your whole night. As long as there are no fractal, screen-saver buddhas or its not set up like you’re watching a TV it’s all good. But I really want to set up more of a live performance because right now I play DJ sets with all of my material and have some pieces of songs I’ve singled out, but I want to have it that each element in the track has a video element so I can manipulate the audio and the video at the same time, but I have to wait for it to be more stable.

DP: What equipment do you use to DJ/ perform?

Ill: I use a Macbook Pro and Ableton with 2 outputs into the DJ mixer and a trigger finger to control effects and stuff. There’s a DJ mixer at every gig so it’s pointless using all your knobs and faders to try and emulate what a mixer can do when one is there all the time. There are lots of times when I’m at a sketchy after-party or a festival or something and I don’t really want to leave my bag lying around, so you gotta be able to carry it for extended periods of time, from plane to plane, on a bike in the desert, so I keep a very minimal setup.

DP: A lot of times I’ve heard clips of you playing D n B and Breaks etc, and you used to make breaks under ‘the phat conductor’, so my question is how do you mould, merge and blend these genres in sets?

Ill: My whole M.O. is that when I’m writing I try to write something that doesn’t sound like any song that I’ve written before. One thing that bothers me is that a lot of people find a certain style that works and then they just do the same thing again and again and again because there’s a lot of pressure from labels, promoters and stuff to be predictable and follow trends and to do a set that always sounds the same so that they can put a little sub-genre next to your name, etc. But in the long term that is not a good idea, because genres and trends come and go, so you don’t want to be left in the dust as an artist when the genre you’re pigeonholed in eats shit. So I try and build a fan base from people that just trust me to play good music of all genres. I have different ways of doing tempo transitions that work and all the styles I play are music that I like and most of the people that come to see me just like my music period. So I can change genres all I like, it just keeps things interesting.

DP: So you basically want to avoid being pigeon-holed. In SA if you have a guy who makes breaks and also some glitch-hop stuff, there’s always 2 different pseudonyms’ for him. Do you ever worry that a guy who hears a glitch track of yours and is like ‘he’s cool, but not my thing’, meanwhile you produce in a plethora of genres and maybe people won’t give your other stuff a chance cos of that one track?

Ill: Basically in the beginning I was just learning what I was doing, my second tune ever got signed so I was just cutting up samples in Acid and I’d just pick sounds that I’d like and put them in an order that made me feel something. All I knew what to do is cut and paste, and pick sounds, and arrange, so all the normal problems you’d be dealing with from a mixing perspective, I’d be dealing with just from a Sound choice. And when I got signed and was talking shop with the guys at the label and I was like “I just cut up samples in Acid” they were shocked, so then they insisted that I have to learn logic and I have to learn MIDI and compressors and sampling and all that stuff. So I did learn all that stuff, but it really slowed my work flow down and became really frustrating as I was now awash in a sea of possibilities and it really bothered me. I was really young , thirteen, when I first started DJing and was nineteen when I got my first record deal. I would consider myself really lucky to put out records because when I started DJing it was my dream to put out a record and hold my own record in my hands. That was the end goal of me DJing! So I consider myself so lucky to still be able to do that. I used to DJ hip-hop, b-boy breaks and weird psychedelic music and the label was like ‘that’s not what style is right now, what style is right now is the UK style nu-skool party breaks and electro’, so I thought, well, these guys are much more experienced than me in the music business so I should listen to what they say and adjust my style to suit them, but once I was more confident in my own production and confident to make the music that I wanted to make I started Ill Gates. I don’t produce any electro house or anything breaks under ill gates. It’s all dubstep, glitch-hop, experimental, dancehall, drum and bass, stuff that I can stand behind 100%. Also Ill gates translates a lot better, when I was the Phat Conductor in France they’d keep putting my name as ‘le gros conducteur’, and I was like no ‘it doesn’t translate;’ besides everyone knows who Bill Gates is, although when I met Bill Gates he didn’t know what ‘ill’ was and I had to explain it to him!

ILL GATES :: SPEED LIMIT (mixtape)

DP: When and how did you meet Bill Gates!?

Ill: Oh I dj’d for him at Sundance Film Festival, he’s like my homie now!

DP: Really! How did he feel about the similarities in the name?

Ill: Oh he thought it was funny. I actually really like Bill Gates, the name’s funny because he’s not hip-hip, he’s like the least hip-hop dude ever right!? But it’s ultimately like a big-up to him, because I think what he does is really admirable, and he’s in kind of a unique position to affect large-scale socio-economic change. When you get to the top levels of power it’s kind of this old boys club that basically got together and then decided that the 3rd world won’t be able to develop to the same standard of living as the 1st world; so they’ve kind of made a conscious decision to keep being as racist as they have always been. They go to countries such as Jamaica with the IMF and the World Bank and say ‘hey do you want to borrow millions and millions of dollars from us’ and the corrupt leaders are like ‘sure!’ and then borrow the money and basically fuck off with it, then the IMF and World Bank restructure the economy In such a way that they are actively impeding its development. I mean a lot of people at these organizations’ lower levels are well intentioned, but at the highest levels the game plan has always been to control the development of these 3rd world countries and prevent them from achieving the standard of living that we enjoy. Whereas Bill Gates, yeah he is the richest guy in the world, but compared to the Rothschild family, the Rockefeller family or the IMF he’s small potatoes. But he’s in a unique position: he is at those high levels of power, and he does have the ears of these leaders and is privy to all kinds of information that we just don’t get. His vision for the Gates foundation is to not only help us in the 1st world to make our standard of living a little bit more palatable from an ecological perspective, but also to provide better education, housing, water, food and cure preventable diseases to inevitably decrease the birth-rate so that in the next 50 to 100 years both our standards of living will be kind of equal. I thought that was a pretty cool concept that he is working with, and he’s not brainwashed by that kind of boys-club ignorance that most major powers in the world are. I mean he could just be sitting around and shaking a fistful of money at everyone but instead he dedicates his time to something he believes in and something that is actually good. I mean he doesn’t have do that, he could generate the same kind of PR buzz by dumping a whole bunch of money into a charity while he’s skiing in Aspen, but instead he is dedicating all his time and energy into the Gates foundation. So I do have a lot of respect for him and I am really glad to know him and also consider myself lucky to have been able to hangout with him.

GET SOME FREE ill gates tracks HERE [click]

DP: Back to music, I see that URB rated you in its top 100 musicians that you will know in the years to come. Does this affect your outlook regarding your work; does it evoke a conscious thought or an element of added pressure that this kind of thing put on you?

Ill: Yes and No. I’ve always known that this is what I want to do, and always prioritized my life so that nothing gets in the way of music: I don’t have a car, I don’t have a kid, I live in Chinatown. The one thing you can’t buy is your own time, that’s the most precious commodity in anyone’s life, so why would you want to sacrifice your own time for a bunch of shit that you don’t really need, that doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve always structured my life so that I have the maximum amount of time dedicated to music and so I’m glad that they’re on board and want to help me, because I felt this way, way before that article, I’ve always felt that purpose so I’m not stressed out about it at all!

GET SOME FREE ill gates tracks HERE [click]

DP: About your tutoring and lecturing and the seminars you do: What do these entail? Is it purely music based?

Ill: Well the first part of it is my philosophies on creativity and how to cultivate your own creativity and originality because that’s really, really important! A lot of people just want to play it safe and give people what they know that people already like. You know that might get you some gigs, and make you palatable to a larger audience but you’re not going to make any real fans until you’re doing something that’s wholly original. I mean other people should sound like you; you shouldn’t sound like other people, right? So a lot of it is teaching people to find their own voice, how to trust themselves creatively because the rational part of your brain is so very afraid of anything that’s new so when you’re on your way to doing something that’s unique there’s a part of your brain that’s like “this doesn’t sound like a collage of my favourite producers, I don’t like this, this sucks”. So I just help people access the different parts of your brain so that you can create and experiment when being creative and then criticize later, how to make and keep your own deadlines, how to properly promote yourself, how to present your music live well, how to network with fans and build a following, different ways to make money that are not obvious. I don’t nerd out about the technical stuff I just teach people how to FINISH SONGS like one after the other, because that’s what you got to do; the days of being able to build your whole career off one song are gone!

DP: You said previously that you live life in kind of a minimalist fashion, whereby the things you own are the things you need. Does this outlook carry through to the studio and your studio gear?

Ill: Oh yeh, I work with very, very minimal gear, I just have really, really nice monitors, a really nice sub and for checking [the mix] I do this thing that is basically free that I’ve found really useful: I have a friend who worked at a junk removal service and I got him to hook me up with all these crappy speakers and a stereo amp, then I have a second output on my soundcard that goes to the stereo amp, and that stereo amp runs to a couple different kinds of headphones, laptop speakers, ghettoblaster speakers and all these other different kinds of speakers that I have around the studios so that you can kind of A/B between them or have 3 sets of speakers going at once. From this all these different things come out that you would never have heard on nice monitors, cos most people are listening to your stuff on like an iPod or shitty laptop speakers or a home stereo or whatever. To have the access to all these different things to listen on is really important for doing mix-downs so that you can make sure that your mix-down sounds good.

DP: I want to speak about glitch-hop. For us glitch-hop has been a music genre that myself and a lot of people I know have been into for a really long time, but has never really had a mainstream platform, but now with artists like you, mochipet, akira kiteshi, bassnectar etc. Have you noticed this growth of the genre from your side?

Ill: Oh my God yes, it’s huge! It has just been massive! Glitch-hop has been around for a really long time right, it’s not a new genre by any stretch of the imagination and a lot of people who wouldn’t really consider themselves glitch-hop have glitch-hop elements in their tracks. Even in that “Fuk ‘n Rad” (Sibot and Waddy) album a lot of those songs sounded glitch-hoppy or would find home in a glitch-hop set; but I’m sure those guys aren’t like “we are glitch-hoppers’! So the genre has been around for a long time but especially in the last couple years it has really opened up. Also the growth of dubstep has helped a lot because people didn’t really consider music under 120BPM to be club music so dubstep has really opened things up for that. Although lately dubstep has just gotten ravier-and-ravier and I think that people are sick of it and they want to hear what other BPM’s have to offer, which has brought a lot of international attention to glitch-hop, but it’s also because people are tired of the same old thing and it’s not interesting! Glitch hop is really out-there and new-sounding and that is something that is interesting. The idea has basically spread one person at a time and is just spreading on the strength of being good music, and interesting and being unlike every other genre of music and nowadays with the internet there are glitch-hop scenes linked all around the world. It’s funny how you go to all these different countries and these people are playing records that my homies back in Canada made in their garage… it’s really crazy to see how far it has spread and how popular it has become. I think it just gives people hope that if they want to do something new, different or interesting they can become successful with that. It just says great things about the future of musical creativity. It’s really very encouraging.

DP: You have a new album coming out soon. Tell us some more about it?

Ill: I’m really excited about it, it is the largest product I’ve launched yet. It’s going to be a free live album that you can just download in exchange for your email address. There are 3 EP’s from the album that are going to be coming out on MUTI music and potentially another label, and then there’s also an online course where it is basically a 12 week boot-camp for producers which launches July 1stand the album releases June 1st. The album is called ‘’The ill Methodology’ and I’ve recorded it at a couple places live and it’s just a matter of picking the best one and It’s going to be totally free; I recorded it when I played for Bill Gates and when I played in Vienna and I just recorded another version in LA that is a bit shorter and it’s going to be totally free!

For me it’s a bit of a problem when I sell people CD’s on the side of the stage, you know ‘Autopirate’ doesn’t really sound like me when I play live. It’s a collection of studio tunes, it’s not a (DJ) set and fans they want a set! They want to have something that sounds like me live that they can put on in their car, or in a house party or something with bangers the whole way through that makes them want to dance and rock out or whatever. The traditional tracks will be available through various music websites, but if you’re a fan and you want something that you can play in your house then it’s a free live mix that contains some bootlegs that I’ve done, some remixes I’ve done for different artists and contains all my favourite tracks that I actually play live.

DP: What about the online course?

Ill: Im really excited about it because when you think about it it’s been found that institutionalized education relies on an extrinsic motivational model; you are doing creative things to get rewards and avoid punishment. This is not why an artist creates: artists create because they think it’s beautiful, or they do it for its own sake, because they feel like it’s an end in itself, or just because they feel like an artist and that’s the kind of thing they do as an artist; this is more of an intrinsic motivational model.

This guy Ed Deci did all these studies and test at the University of Rochester with 3 conditions: 1. A control group where they gave these kids a bunch of art supplies and told them to paint, 2. There was an intrinsic motivational group that they had a teacher that they looked up to and respected that came in and casually remarked that these paintings are wonderful and that they’re all talented artists, 3. Extrinsic motivation group where they offered candy in exchanged for paintings.

What they found was that in the control group there was a wide range of artistic quality. In the intrinsic group they found that the kids painted really, really well. In the extrinsic motivation group it was just atrocious, they were the most half-assed, ‘I don’t give a ‘eff’, give me my candy paintings’. That’s why you get people who go to art school and drama school and then by the time they’re done it’s not fun for them anymore and they go work in an office to pay off their debt. It’s also why the extrinsic motivational is poisonous for creativity, so the institutionalized model doesn’t really work for creativity. So where else do you turn if you’re not going to go to those $20,000 per year audio schools? Well, people will turn to music magazines and all those music magazines, on the front cover, are like ‘best synth ever!’ and will try and sell you all this gear and won’t teach you how to finish a song, because they don’t even necessarily want you to finish a song they just want you to keep buying their gear and magazines and synthesizers that you don’t need.

So eventually I want to redefine the model of electronic music education to be artist driven or promoter driven. I want kids’ first thoughts, when they’re coming up, to be like; ‘what workshops can I take? Who can I apprentice with? Are there any artists in my area that I like that I can get to come into my studio to show me a thing or two? Who can I collaborate with?’ That should be your first thought not what $20,000 a year audio school can I go to, or that they need a Virus TI… because you don’t need any of those things, you just need passion and time and to know what sucks. And if you feel like you know what sucks and that you love music and want to put the time in and the passion to put into music then you’ll get good. But if you’re worried about making mistakes and you need these external ideas of legitimacy by buying gear or going to an expensive school or whatever then you’ve already lost the plot. So the ill-methodology.com is going be the go-to place for artist-centered modeled education. When you take the course you get a login on the message board, and the message board is going to be a place where people can talk about actually finishing songs, promoting yourself properly, making money in the industry, those kinds of things that you can only actually learn from successful musicians. There are also going to be guest videos every month and I’m also going to teach the students to teach others; the subscriptions are going to pay out based on whose videos gets the most number of unique users watching it. So if you’re a student and you can put together a good tutorial that’s going to give you a chance to get known and make some money. The ultimate goal is to redefine the model of electronic music education.

ESKAMON: “Fine Objects” – Ableton Tutorial by ill.Gates from ESKMO on Vimeo.

It’s all unified by this brand the ill-methodology: If you’re a fan I’m going to make sure you’re always getting free stuff, if you’re a DJ you can go and buy the songs, and if you’re a producer then you can join this non-corporate, independent creative educational community and network with producers, set-up tours and go do workshops etc. I’m pretty excited about the whole project! I want it to be platform for other people to learn and to share and network and grow. So yah, that launches later this year!

GET SOME FREE ill gates tracks HERE [click]

• more ill gates: check out his myspace
• or phatconductor.com
• or eskamon.com

Other than the depression of Monday I hope everyone had a rad weekend, the sun is shining today too so it can’t be all that bad. Today I’ll share with you a little interview I had with the creators of menswear range Simon Deporres. I continue to be impressed by the style and quality these guys are bringing to us. I complain a lot about boys with bad style so here it my solution to the problem. Just wear Simon Deporres.
Other than that I’m nothing but impressed with the level of professionalism and understanding that these guys have regarding the fashion industry. They started in Matric with printing tshirts, 20 at a time and sold it to their homies. All the money they made that year paid for them to go on Matric rave. Pretty fuckn smart if you ask me. Anyway they are only in 2nd year of studying but they’re doing big things so here’s a bit about them before they blow up so big I can’t track them down anymore and they pretend not to know me.

So who is actually Simon Deporres?

It’s Simon Pocock & Mpilo Deporres Ngcukana, that’s where we got the name from, nothing complicated or cryptic.

How would you define the personality of the brand?

I guess we’re trying to bridge the gap between classic streetwear and original couture fashion. Does that make sense?

Dream collaboration?

ummm Topman. But we’d really like to do a range of tshirts with an illustrator and shoes with someone too, a sneaker colab.

Local labels you like and respect?

David West (for making menswear wearable & accessible), Mingo Lamberti, 2Bop.

What’s in the future for you guys?

Next year we want to be able to do this full time when studying is done. We’d like to get out stuff into A-store, that’s our immediate goal, and hopefully The Street in Joburg, we’d love to get a following up there. We’d like to stay and grow in South Africa and then move. We’re not trying to just pick up and leave like a lot of people do.

What’s in the current range?

Jackets, baseball jackets and tshirt, we also did a few SD flat peak caps. You can check everything out in the catalogue page on our site. In summer we did a load of shorts and cardigans too.

Where can we get your stuff?

In the design tent at the Neighbourhood Market at the Biscuit Mill.

RAD. So I think you can see this is the kind of brand that’s going to do big things.

That aside the clothes are INCREDIBLE. I’m currently trying to get the boys to agree to make me a girls item so hold thumbs.

Check em here

Anths.

I know we posted about them on Monday but this interview is seriously pretty fucked up. Hear them talk about their Self confessed “Car Crash Music”, Afrikaans swearing, tuning the Wedding DJ’s, Heaven and Hell, SA being a third world Hell, playing at Coachella, making a track with Diplo and a load of other pretty weird shit.

Music is something that brings us together, but is also powerful enough to drive us apart. Genres exist within specific subcultures that are reactionary to other cultural movements and styles. For example, during the early ’00′s we saw the revival of a dead supergenre, notoriously known as techno. This time around, techno had some new moves, and became it’s own successor, commonly known as minimal. During this time, there was a sharp opposing force, which some may not directly attribute to being reactionary towards minimal techno, but nonetheless, the maximized sawtooth onslaught dominated by the likes of Parisian Ed Banger Records and Berlin’s Boys Noize, had a massive thrust in the complete opposite direction to that of minimal. Concurrently, a multitude of subgenres and crossgenres emerged, each trying to make it’s own path, individual from the rest of the pack [think indie electro, crunk, nu rave, fidget house, b-more, ghetto tech, dubstep, grime, glitch, micro house, arguably even the resuscitation of tech house and all other forms of wonk/wobble bass music].

Zodiac Cartel, or Lord Zod to the minion, is a producer that has laughed in the face of all this primitive sub genre rivalry that has existed within the spheres of electronic music in the past several years. He burst onto the scene in ’07, and within the next few years he went on to do many mammoth remixes and original productions on renowned labels such as Wearhouse Music, U&A Recordings and Coco Machete. His sound was and remains to be impossible to pin down. Some have tried to slap the ‘fidget’ tail on his tracks, but then he would drop acid anthems like his remix of Fukkk Offf’s Rave is King, and just when you thought it was safe to go back to the rave, he unleashed a dancefloor shredder mix of The Subs’ From Dusk Till Dawn, and then a lazy bassline house stinker in the form of his own Stay on Top. The man is fucking elusive, having kept his true identity concealed for an eternity, and I get the feeling that the more the masses try to box it in, the more mischievous and obscure his sound will get.

According to his Myspace ‘The Zodiac Cartel ethos is simple. ‘Jackin’ House Music With A Techno Soul’

And according to IDJ Mag ‘Zodiac Cartel is so far ahead of most of the other producers pushing the warehouse sound it’s almost embarrassing!’

Us geeks at Dont Party are ecstatic to have been able to catch up with the accused for a heart to [dark] heart.

DP: The past few years have been a real roller-coaster ride of trend based genres coming and going, how have you managed to keep your somewhat ‘untouchable’ status?
ZC: I’ve never been interested in following trends. What tends to happen is someone will come up with a great sound or riff and within a month 1,001 people will have ripped it, imitated it and basically ground it into a bloody pulp. It’s the simple law of diminishing returns, basically. The perfect analogy for this is the Oozlum bird from Anglo-Australian mythology which flies in ever-decreasing circles until it disappears up it’s own anus.

DP: Aside from the actual styles of music changing, this past decade has seen loads of innovations on the way music is being played. We know that you remained cloaked and indoors for a while, but would you say that new technology in playing music out is a big part of the Zodiac Cartel experience?
ZC: The new technology is wonderful in many ways, but counter-productive in others and the worst thing you can say about it is that it’s made people incredibly lazy in how they throw their music together. I’ve seen massive DJs just come on & press play on their laptops then spend the next hour getting as pissed as humanly possible. I prefer to use two or three CDJs and a DJM-800 when I play out – that’s more than enough to engage the crowd with and also keep you on your toes.

DP: What software/outboard gear do you use for gigs? And for producing music?
ZC: No software for shows – I’m a DJ rather than a selector. Production-wise a mix of hardware & software all going through a 32 channel Mackie desk with Apogee & MOTU soundcards & converters. Understanding the space you work in is the main thing, and understanding the way that your sound translates once it leaves the studio is the other. I could give you a list of plug-ins & suchlike but that would tell you nothing at all – it’s what you do with them that counts.

DP: We’ve noticed many different elements in your tracks spanning many genres. Is this non-genre-specific approach purely an experimental process in order to find the true sound that is Zodiac Cartel, or would you say it is this experimental nature that is at the core of what you do?
ZC: Well I’m not really a preset guy. I don’t set out to ‘find my sound’, save it as a preset and then rinse it out for the next couple of years – that would be immensely uninspiring, and given the number of remixes I have done (all of which I take quite seriously), it’s only to be expected that the sounds will vary from track to track. Recently I remixed a trad jazz-based fidget track and then the following week I was doing a very mellow ambient Moby remix so it kind of figures that if the components are that varied, so will be the final outcome.

DP: A couple of years ago, it would have been safe to say that the UK [more specifically London] was the global epicenter of electronic music. Focus may have shifted substantially over to Berlin, yet the UK still retains a sound that is distinctively it’s own. Why do you think this is?
ZC: I don’t know – I never really trust those kinds of generalisations. All of the producers I know who lived in London a couple of years ago (bar two perhaps) still live in London. That whole minimal Berlin thing obviously blew up a while ago, but thankfully blew itself out pretty quickly – ultimately a lot of that stuff is just too cold, knowing and clinical to put a smile on people’s faces at the weekend, which is still a primary reason for making club music, right? The UK has such an incredible, rich heritage of innovative and very personal music that speaks to each ‘tribe’ in a unique and direct way, that we’re just never going to be that easily led … plus of course our superiority complex, which most creative-rich nations suffer from.

DP: Having toured the planet under your various guises, would you say that quality electronic music has crept into most corners of the globe? Do you sometimes have followings in unexpected places?
ZC: Yes that is absolutely the case, and these shows that happen right out there on the fringes of the world (as you know it from a Western European perspective) are almost always the most spectacular and the people are both the hungriest, and the least judgemental of all crowds.

DP: You remained behind the smoke screen of your hidden identity for some time. Would you say that the days of the superstar DJ are over?
ZC: No, far from it. I think they are now as entrenched, branded, corporate and ‘establishment’ as the most conservative of political systems, but they’re also still the most successful people in the game, and in many cases they are now standalone brands in their own right, which means they are no longer playing on the same playing field as many of us down here in the filthy mire.

DP: You have shown that success in this industry is not always formulaic. What factors would you attribute to your success?
ZC: The point of the ‘hidden identity’ thing was really to allow the music to do the talking, and nothing else. The Zod imagery evolved around it quite organically & continues to do so, but ultimately it just comes down to the simple fact that people seem to like the music, and that’s the main thing for me.

DP: What can we expect from Zodiac Cartel in future?
ZC: This year I’m looking to develop the DJ side of things further as I haven’t had that much interest in doing too many live shows until now, and I am working on some bespoke visuals with some of the Pixel Addicts crew.

I recently launched the website at http://www.zodiaccartel.com which includes some free downloads as well as an online store where we’re doing custom bundles of all the singles with added remix parts & other bonus content.

I also have a new single coming on U&A Recordings around May time and remixes coming out shortly for Moby, Lee Coombs, Emanul Kosh and this brand new thing for Tai on Coco Machete.

Thanks very much to General Zod for checking in with Dont Party. Check out some of his dancefloor bombs below [some of which are available for free download], as well as the above mentioned websites for MORE free tracks, exclusive purchases and various other explicit goods.

And remember kids, Dont Party cos you might start worshiping false idols. Hail Lord Zod!

Emanul Kosh – Make My Music (Zodiac Cartel Mix) TASTER by Zodiac Cartel

Sweet Control (128k TASTER) by Zodiac Cartel

Zodiac Cartel – All Day (TASTER 128k) by Zodiac Cartel

Zodiac Cartel – Stay On Top (128k TASTER) by Zodiac Cartel

The Subs – From Dusk Till Dawn (Zodiac Cartel Mix) TASTER by Zodiac Cartel

Franz Ferdinand – No You Girls (Zodiac Cartel mix) by Zodiac Cartel

['No You Girls' is part of Zodiac Cartel's Weapons of Choice series, available for free download]

Decoder & Healey – Echoes In My Head (Zodiac Cartel Mix) [TASTER] by Zodiac Cartel
['Echoes in My Head' available for free download here]

Fukk Off – Rave is King (Zodiac Cartel Mix) [TASTER] by Zodiac Cartel

BASSNECTAR

Music to most people is a way of life, a system of introspection, a sacred sanctity of ones own thoughts and reflections that can be recalled with the fire of imagination to create a new world, a new life or a break from the current one. When these types of people hear music that they appreciate it hits them straight in their core, it acts as a mechanism for multi-faceted synapse release that can induce a trance like state in the listener. Of the multitude of “artists” out there in the world the void that once existed between them has been bridged by the internet, nowadays new artists pop up like pimple’s on a meth heads face, and like the irritation caused to the poor junkie’s skin, most new “artists” can cause the same irritation to the listener, as time after time, track after track, the search for new and interesting music becomes mundane, suffocated by the vast, ever increasing well of “copy-cat”, carbon copy artists….

But then you stumble on to something different, in a way to almost part the red sea, the track fills up your immediate space, and you connect with it. Well for me, and many others like me, this happens with tracks from a man that they call Bassnectar!

If you haven’t heard of him, you might have spent too much time living under that rock, but for the vast majority who have, he has created a cerebral awakening in the hearts and minds of music lovers from all over the globe. His music is unique, flowing, smooth and fresh. His sound is his own and his style has not just been to duplicate 130BPM dance music, to keep the internet windmill turning, but each track that he offers expresses a feeling, a mood, a vibe. He does not work with the commercial crew, and despite his “fame”, he does not care to put a will-i-am on a track to sell records, but searches for the hidden talent, to siv the fresh from the rotten: He describes it himself as “omnitempo maximalism“, which means no rules, no limitations, and no hesitation in fusing the familiar with the strange or the classic with the cutting edge.

“We are so blessed, and so deeply fortunate to be alive and awake right now…it’s a basic truth, but it’s very powerful. I think privilege confers responsibility, and Bassnectar is a reflection of that opportunity to give back; the motion of my cells bouncing back at the world.”

- Bassnectar

What started back in the mid nineties as social action youth culture experiment has become a being that has ties all around the world, and loads of loyal fans spreading its wings. Bassnectar is awesome, a truely inspiration being that will give you his thanks and spends much time devoted to giving stuff back, whether its free tracks, merchandise or just a “thank you” response, this guy puts in the effort, which makes him seem normal in the world of the celebrity.

Truely, one of my favorite artists, Dont Party was lucky enough to be given some super good head-space time with the man himself, and he was well keen the entire way through!

Here is a bit of Bassnectar in a few questions or less…

1.    Recently you were in the running to be voted as America’s top DJ (by americasbestdj.net), seeing as your sound isn’t the stereotypical ‘commercial’, Black Eyed Peas blaring monotonously out of your speakers, did it surprise you to be in the running (and also do so well), or are you finding people are responding with much more enthusiasm to less corporately backed rubbish and want more from their music?

I hadn’t actually heard about that ‘nomination’ but I think most of that stuff is insane anyways. In general, YES: people gravitate toward authentic, raw quality over well-marketed, high-polished, low-risk sound. Underground music will always have that advantage, as we strive to mutate farther beyond the status quo, and get more daring in our adventures; we increase our potential to develop undeniable dopeness! (We also fail miserably at times too! ha)

2.    How would you describe the kind of music that you make/ play to the person who has been sheltered in the Antarctic for the last decade and hasn’t heard of you?

Well, I don’t follow many rules, and I love to allow myself un-disturbed creative freedom, so the sounds and styles change a lot. Really, it’s anything that I enjoy, and at times, it plays the devil’s advocate, or creates almost a foil or darkness so that another part or song can shine in comparison. I don’t know, I would probably tell that person in the Antarctic to read “Jitterbug Perfume” and drink some hot tea.

3.    Do you think that in today’s digital age, it is important to be a producer as well as a DJ to ensure longevity in your career?

I think it is pretty far past the point that an individual can simply DJ (the verb) and not participate deeper with their content (remixes, edits, or digital techniques) unless it is just a creative past time. In terms of professionally providing a state of the art experience for other people, the bar will always be raised, and it’s up to the individual if they care about where the bar is.

For myself, I could not STOP myself from producing, creating, re-creating, remixing, or participating in the constant changes and mutations of music. It is automatic.

4.    How do you feel about the age of the ‘traktor’ DJ?

I’ve never used Traktor. I use Ableton LIVE, and I love it. I started off playing guitar and drums in death metal bands, moved into production in 1995, and DJing just happened because it was so easy (“oh, you mean play the music you love for other people? Ok, easy.”)

At this point I have no interest in DJing (beat-matching 2 songs on vinyl or CD) because it just doesn’t sound engaging. Live sonic mutation through the use of unlimited layers, samples, and effects is still fun, but the real pleasure is pleasuring other humans in a live setting… that is what cannot be pirated, duplicated or faked.

5.    When I hear one of your tracks, I immediately know it’s yours, the combination of your unique bass sound and those sick swung drums… something that you’re very well known for. Is this originality something you’ve consciously worked towards, or has it just been a natural development?

I’ve heard a pretty specific sound in my head for a LONG time…
In 1995 when I started going out to ‘techno raves’ I was so new to it all that just loved everything I heard. Then as I got more specifically into psy trance I liked the heavier, more demonic shit, and I loved the really crazy percussive stuff. As I steered into experimental electronica I wished it had more bass and thickness, and I wished jungle was slower and heavier. At the turn of the century I was DJing with most of my records pitched down to 33, usually I would record it like that and add new percussion loops on top for brightness, I was doing extreme electronic edits to my material by 1998, so it has been a pretty mutant style ever since then.
I guess I create sounds to compliment what’s already in existence, in that I am not as interested in producing sounds that are already well-developed and distributed. The heavy-swung 100 bpm bass-hop thing started in 1999 by accident with some beatbox loops I recorded, a JP-8000, and the discovery of the “shuffle” function in quantizing.

6.    Take us through a normal day in your life?

HOME: wake up around 11, wrestle with email/phone correspondence until sundown, and then make music until about 3am.

TOUR: wake up around 11, travel for 4-8 hours, sound check, execute the set, crash.

7.    You always seem to be touring, how do you find time to make tracks?

That is extremely difficult. I have so much unfinished…I even have collaborations (including one of the sickest acapellas I’ve ever heard, from South African MC: SPOEK) and unfinished tracks as far back as ten years which are just collecting dust…nearly 1000 unfinished song ideas… it’s just how it goes I guess.

8.    What software do you use for your production?

Previously: Reason, Cubase, Sound Forge.
Currently: Ableton, Massive, Albino.

9.    Do you own any outboard gear?

My chair.

10.    Do you ever struggle to stay motivated because you have such a rigorous schedule?

Motivation has never been a problem. It is the least of my concerns.

11.    How do you feel about electronic music at the moment, is it progressing nicely, or do you feel like it’s in a weird kind of rut?

It’s great. I am mostly attracted to either: extremely well-made high quality music with undeniable groove (that would be all the household names and such) *OR* totally freaked-out genius experimentation (Wormstorm is a great example of this, as is Die Antwoord, whom I recently discovered and have since become their number 1 fan).

12.    You said to me previously that you are really interested in the South African scene…

a.    What sparked this interest?
b.    From what you’ve heard do you thing South African producers have got what it takes to compete on a world stage level?

Years ago I discovered Sibot, Spoek, Markus Wormstorm, and all their loco side-projects and stuff. Recently getting new material from P.H. Fat and Die Antwoord, I just think it is fantastic… overall I don’t think about ‘competing on a world stage level’ …instead I think about creating hi-quality music and art, and there is something really unique about the rawness and the ingenuity of what I’ve heard coming out of there, as WELL as staying true to heavy, crushing sound. It is obvious that a lot of my favorite South African artists are hearing certain styles, taking that in, and then responding with a mutated personal take, which becomes a sound all their own. I love it!

13.    When are you coming to South Africa!!!!????

In North America, things are just exploding; I barely have enough time to think straight. The tour schedule is literally nonstop (and has been for years on end) so I haven’t made a lot of time to travel across the sea, either to Europe, Asia, or Africa…. I know it would be a great adventure and one day I am sure it will happen, but in the meantime, my plate is full, and I am mega grateful for everything I have experienced. And the future looks bright…. :)

2010 IDJ Mixtape by  Bassnectar
Cozza Frenzy (Original) by  Bassnectar

For more of the BASSNECTAR’s antics check out: Bassnectar.net (click)

Well it would appear Dont Party readers enjoy a bit of Jack Parow, our previous post on the man from behind the “boerewors gordyn”, his words not mine, was one of our most viewed posts in January, now quite a lot of that stems from Google searches etc, but we thought it was time we had a sit down with the man himself and get his view on “Gevaarlike Romatiese rap” and life behind the boerewors gordyn.

We asked him 15 questions and here’s what he had to say:

DP: So Jack Parow? Firstly how did the name come about?

Jack: Being drunk as usual and watching Pirates of the Caribean…I was like…fuck Jack Sparow! The Pirate of the Caribean…Im Jack Parow the Pirate of the Caravan Park…luckily I remembered it the next day

DP: The Hat, we have to mention the hat that has become a Jack Parow Trademark. How, where, when and why?

Jack: My chommie Richard de Jager made it for me…we just wanted to exaggerate some features…we did a few different things…but the hat just stuck..its lekker kief!

DP: How would you describe your music, we’ve heard many different terms thrown around when it comes to Jack Parow.

Jack: Gevaarlike romatiese Afrikaans rap

DP: You rap in Afrikaans, are there any plans for an English track or two in the near future, or are you sticking to your roots?

Jack: I always gooi Afikaans…but i’ve got one or two English numbers waiting to come out…so ja…watch out

DP: Speaking of roots, where is it Jack Parow’s from?

Jack: The northern suburbs…behind the boerewors gordyn

DP: You seem to be hitting a tipping point in your career, you can’t look at Facebook or elsewhere on the net without seeing or hearing something about you. What are your plans for the future?

Jack: At the moment i’m hitting SA hard…my album is launching end of march and then i’m also dealing with a kief label who want to put my kief tunes all over Europe…so Europe next…IS JA

“1,2,3,4,5,6,7…rook te veel dagga en

dink oor jou lewe”

DP: Your tracks have pretty catchy back tracks, do you do the rapping and the producing or is there someone else responsible for the backtracks?

Jack: I only do the rapping…but i’ve got a whole bunch of monsters in my cupboard who make lekke beats

DP: Who do you look to for inspiration, we’ve read Cypress Hill was an inspiration of yours, any other artists who helped mould Jack Parow?

Jack: Well,theres many…Wutang…Eminem…Del the Funky Homosapien…Beastieboys…to name a few

DP: You do a lot of collaborative work, you have a certain level of involvement with Die Antwoord and you’ve collaborated with Die Heuwels Fantasties, any other collaborations on the horizon, or are you going to stay focused on your solo stuff?

Jack: I want to stay focused on my solo things…but there are a bunch of collabs coming…with Thieve, P.H. Fat, Photo na dans, AM Stereo and many more…I like making kak with my friends

DP: Whats the best line you’ve ever written?

Jack: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7…rook te veel dagga en dink oor jou lewe

DP: When can we expect a full album?

Jack: End of march slat hy die straat

DP: We loved the “cooler as Ekke” video, how did the music video come together

Jack: My kief friend Duvan Durant directed it and made it all fancy and kief like it is now…I like it to

DP: South Africa seems to be a land filled with stereotypes, yourself and Gazelle have played on these brilliantly, what inspired you to create the Jack Parow persona?

Jack: Me, its how I am, its how i grew up…it might have been a exaggerated version of myself at first…but now its me…straight

DP: We saw on Facebook that you were having some problems with rumours, anything you want to clear up

Jack: haha, no, its all cool, jealousy makes you nasty, so i don’t care.

DP: Whats the strangest thing you’ve read or heard about yourself?

Jack: That i’m actually English and come from some fancy English school and suburb

Well there you have it, we’ll be keeping an eye on old Jack Parow, and we’ll be sure to keep you in loop. We also found another a video of Jack Parow’s, its a collaboration with Die Heuwels Fantasties, it was uploaded in Decmeber 2009 so its still pretty fresh, and if you havent seen Cooler as Ekke yet check out our post on it here, its definately worth a watch.

Die Heuwels Fantasties ft. Jack Parow – Die Vraagstuk

Some picks of Jack Parow we found along the way

Sibot “in with the old” and 10 ways of doing so:

As you may well know Dont Party @ Discotheque with the “Garbage Pail Kids” is happening this Friday (the 13th Nov. 2009), at The Assembly in Cape Town. With Sibot, Richard The Third, Dank, Liver and Zim Dollar Bill all ripping up the decks.

Check out more on the event here if you haven’t yet heard about it.

So we at Dont Party decided to catch up with our headliner, Sibot, and ask him some round about questions!

1. You’ve been playing a lot overseas (Europe/ UK) recently, what’s the vibe like there? Do you think that South Africa on any kind of similar level (Events/ Acts/ Mindset) as they do over there?

There’s a lot more international traffic over there so there are more parties more often, you could find a don’t party style party on a Thursday with 2 or three internationals.
2. How would you comment on South African pop-culture as a whole: Good/ Bad/ Ugly/

Getting-there? Elaborate? POP culture !!! lame, lame. At least pop stars in USA have a cool factor, there producer’s are edgy and the artist are brave making the package untouchable, our POP culture is so safe.
3 You recently bought an APC 40 and have headed full swing into the Ableton/ Digital age. How do you find the new technology? Do you have any reservations about this new age of the digital performer?

Absolutely, I still prefer kicking it old school, I’m finding the APC a lil clumsy…. It’s amazing , but clumsy.

4. Would you ever pose nude for money?

I’d do it for free.

5. What’s the favourite piece of studio equipment that you own at the moment?

Still my wurli but my UAD fx card is right up there.

6. How do you like your eggs?

Poached

7. Who music would you most like to remix?

Orchestral scores.

8. Who would you most like to remix a track of yours?

Chris clark

9. Entourage/ Lost/ Battlestar Gallactica?

Lost

Go check out his Dont Party Artist Spot with a couple of free tracks here>>

Check out Sibot doing what he does best at Dont Party @ Discotheque on Friday the 13th…
and that is MAKING PEOPLE GO BANANAS!