The lads took some time out from a busy studio and gigging schedule to talk and reflect on the last 12 months, the rise of Gruuv, what's currently in their record boxes and what is in store for them in 2012.
James Rial and Richard Burkinshaw (AKA Audiojack) are DJs, label owners and producers with music out on some of the worlds most highly respected and established labels including 2020Vision, Get Physical, Renaissance, BluFin, Diynamic and their own Gruuv imprint. They've remixed some of the biggest names in house including Underworld, Style of Eye, Mike Monday, Groove Armada, 2020Soundsystem and Paul Woolford ranging from the deeper end of house to driving techno, appealing to a wide range of international DJs and music fans alike.
Hi Rich & Jamie, thanks for taking time out to talk to us.
As the year draws to a close, what have been your highlights in 2011?
Rich: I know you're probably expecting some far flung story here but honestly my highlight, or at least the most important thing, was stopping smoking cigarettes. I haven't had one since January and I'm happy to say I think I've cracked it!
Of course there are some fantastic gig memories too such as Circo Loco in Sydney, D-Edge in Sao Paulo and Watergate in Berlin. My favourite gig of the year though was at a small venue called Vibe in Curitiba. I just love that club and their crowd! The whole city as well actually. And to think my phone alarm didn't go off and I nearly slept right through it!
I'm very happy with our musical progression over the last couple of years - we're really comfortable and excited with the house sound we're immersed in right now. We're really pleased to see our latest 2020 Vision EP being so well received. A Gruuv highlight would have to be Nice7's track Point which came out in February and topped Beatport's chart at number 1 for several weeks, becoming Gruuv's first five figure sales track!
Jamie: Yeah much of the same really, really enjoyed getting to play in San Francisco with Kevin Knapp (of "Like This") doing live vocals over the music. Really been enjoying the musical evolution too because it's brought us back to a sound that we grew up with as there are so many early 90's house influences in there.
How did the name Audiojack come about?
It was as simple as two guys sitting in a park reeling ideas off and Audiojack was the first one we both totally agreed on! That's something we still use to gauge the potential of our new music today actually, if we both totally agree on something it almost always ends up being something special.
When you first started listening to electronic music, which parties and DJ where you going to see?
Rich: I got into hardcore and techno when I was about 13 although I didn't go to many clubs back then, I was mostly listening to mix tapes, the likes of Sven Vath, Stu Allen, Slipmatt, Carl Cox all spring to mind. The first club night I remember going to would be DJ Sy in Wakefield circa about '94. I loved it, although in retrospect I'm sure it was awful! My first real DJ love though, and the inspiration behind a lot of my musical development has to be Sasha, a love affair which started around '96 and continues to this day. We signed to his now defunct agency Excession a few years ago and I had the privilege of meeting him in Miami. His Essential Mix from 2001 is still to me the greatest mix I've ever heard. I asked him how long it had taken him to get the right tracks and order ready for it. He told he'd got most of the tracks that week and just played them through in his hotel before going ahead and mixing it. The original superstar DJ...
Jamie: When I was at school my mate used to make me tapes with early 90s house on there and I used to listen to it on my walkman (younger readers note this is a very early version of todays iPod) when I was training for sport and what not. There was a rave held in the small town I lived in so I went to that for a couple of years before going to uni where I really got into the clubbing scene. I used to go out in Birmingham to clubs like Wobble and listen to whoever was playing really I didn't care what kind of music it was as long as it was credible dance music I just soaked it all up. It's only been in the last 10 years that my taste has zeroed in on the specific types of electronic music I'm into now. I've certainly become more of a music snob over the years ha ha.
"We were kids who got a lucky break back then. We've since had 5 years to hone our sound and learn new production techniques..."
How do you think your sound has evolved since your first track 'Robot' back in 2005?
Well we've matured a lot since then, our tastes have become more refined and we're definitely much less noisy! Robot was a twanging techno monster, made around 128bpm whereas the stuff we're making now would almost all be categorised as house, and much slower too, around 120-124bpm. We were kids who got a lucky break back then. We've since had 5 years to hone our sound and learn new production techniques, so I'd hope our sound has improved, if not we should probably look into new careers!
Which artists have been your biggest influence on your music, right from when you first started out to more recent time?
When we first started out as Audiojack we were very inspired by artists such as Switch, King Roc, Tiefshwarz and Paul Woolford. It's interesting to see how these inspirations have moved musically too. We're still very much musically in tune with King Roc (Martin Dawson) despite our music and his changing a lot. We've got a lot of respect for Wooly and Tiefshwarz, but what happened to Switch?
Rich: I heard something he's made under a pseudonym the other day on 6music and it was almost unlistenable - probably one of the worst things I've ever heard! It was reviewed on Round Table, a feature on Steve Lamaq's show. The funny thing was all the reviewers sat around the room were all saying how much they 'quite' liked it! I think most likely a case of uncomfortable 30 something musos and journo's desperately trying to remain cool in front of the kids. An Emperors New Clothes situation. Either that or I'm just old!
Back on point though, every year sees new influences and new favourite artist's spring up. In the last year or so Maceo Plex, Huxley, Waifs & Strays, FCL, Eats Everything and Julio Bashmore have been really standout artists or us. We're really excited about quite a few newer artists such as Balcazar & Sordo, Ardalan, Ksky and Dusky. Keep your eyes out for upcoming material from them on our Gruuv label.
What's been keeping you busy in the studio lately?
Finding out we can use 3rd party plugins in our music set up has been the single most important discovery for us musically in the last couple of years. This year we bought Rob Papens Albino 3 and Subboombass plugins which has opened a lot of doors to new exciting sound which most of our new productions are based around.
How would you describe your creative process whilst working together in the studio?
Pretty straight forward really, getting a good groove or bass line that's going to work on the dance floor is paramount. If the foot isn't tapping to a simple loop then it's back to the drawing board. Then its building a track around that using the percussion to get the type of rhythm you're aiming for, and the instruments to get the mood you want and a structure to fit where you'd want it to fit in a set. All sounds pretty obvious and as long as you can get what's in your head to come out of your speakers you get a nice little tune at the end of it all.
Which artist would you love to collaborate with?
It might sound bizarre but none really! The phrase 'too many cooks' springs to mind, we've already got enough ideas going on in the studio. Although there are lots of vocalists we'd love to work with, impossibilities such as Dave Gahan, Bjork or Thom Yorke, and lots of bands we'd love to remix.
What is your favourite track at the moment?
Right this minute the first track that comes to mind is a new one we've just finished called Overtone. There's some red hot tracks coming next year on Gruuv too, but you'll have to wait and see regarding the specifics! For something people can check out right now though, keep your eyes out for the upcoming Catz n Dogs EP on Dirtybird.
Which artists and producers are you feeling right now?
Probably covered above?!
How do you compare studio time to playing out at gigs?
You can't really they're totally different, it's like comparing writing an essay in your own time to doing a presentation in front of a crowd of people.
Your new label Gruuv has gone from strength to strength over the last year or so, why did you want to become label owners?
Primarily we started Gruuv out of a passion to support some of the fantastic music we were being sent by upcoming producers. Also as a platform to occasionally release our own music. We just love putting EPs together, from helping artists with getting their sound right to signing music, choosing remixers and promo'ing to other DJs and releasing. It's a great feeling and it's a fantastic reason to get in touch with producers we respect.
"Different Language has been the best thing that's happened to the underground scene in Hull as there aren't other places where you can see these kind of international acts in a warehousey type environment..."
Gruuv has seen artists such as Catz N Dogz, Luna City Express, Marcin Czubala and H.O.S.H involved, is there a specific sound you are after releasing?
Yes and no... you'll not see any banging trance or heavy metal coming out of our label but we definitely don't want to be pigeonholed into one specific sound. We set our Gruuv sound out the same way we set out our Audiojack sound - just groovy bass driven music which sounds good and works on the dance floor.
What are your future plans and goals for Gruuv?
Our first release in January is a pretty big one, we've been working with vocalist Kevin Knapp for our new Audiojack EP with remixes from FCL, Waifs & Strays and Gorge.
Long term our plans are fairly straightforward - just keep signing and releasing music we fully support from the artists we love.
You're from Hull right... what do you think to the music scene here since you left for Leeds?
Rich: I'm actually from Barnsley (don't tell anyone) so I'll leave this one with Jamie!
Jamie: There will always be a decent crowd into good underground music in Hull and a decent scene as limited as that maybe compared to some of the cities in the UK. It seems to come and go in waves where everyone will want to be a part of it and go out to the gigs and then for a while only the hardcore fans will go out but it will always keep bubbling away. I think since the Our House days of the mid naughties, Different Language has been the best thing that's happened to the underground scene in Hull as there aren't other places where you can see these kind of international acts in a warehousey type environment.
Buzzing Fly's Ben Watt wrote on Hull which is a nice read.
You've frequented the Different Language parties as both guests and to party, are you looking forward to be back playing there again?
It's always nice to play in Hull as so many of our friends come from there and it's a great opportunity to catch up with them. We've always had a great time at your parties and the venue this time is new to us so we're looking forward to checking that out and showing off some of the new music mentioned above!
See you both on Boxing Night, until then have a Merry Christmas!
The red-hot remix pair sit down to talk studio expansion, searching for samples and getting to grips with Rob Papen’s Albino 3 in this exclusive S2S interview.
In little over 5 years, James Rial and Richard Burkinshaw (AKA Audiojack) have grown from underground mainstays on Ralph Lawson’s 2020 Vision into in demand remixers of Underworld, Groove Armada, Little Boots and Bryan Ferry. With releases on Get Physical, Diynamic, Great Stuff, Renaissance, Cr2 and their own rapidly expanding Gruuv imprint there’s little doubt where their heart truly lies – the dancefloor. Here the Leeds lads open their studio door for a glimpse of how they do their thing.
Talk us through your studio set-up…
It has been documented in the past that we have a relatively sparse studio set-up. While that was the case, we’ve since upgraded somewhat as we’ve learnt that investing in better gear gives you more options.
We’re still on PC and use FlStudio10 as our main DAW (much to many peoples disbelief) but we also have Ableton Live 8 as a secondary DAW. We’ve got an Emu X-board 25 midi keyboard for punching out hooks and riffs and a Korg Triton Le which, although is a complete music workstation in its own right, we use for its synth sounds.
All this is pumped out through the same modest amp and speakers we’ve used from day one – the Kam Sound Pack 2. This was only £100, which is so cheap compared to the much more expensive active monitors most people use but not only are our ears used to the sound now but it also produces a modest sound so when we play the tracks on a good system they sounds even better. We’ve found that the biggest problems in our music is when we’ve moved studios and the sound of the room is different and it can take months for your ears to readjust and start creating music you’re happy with again.
Is there a piece of kit you feel has had a significant impact on the Audiojack sound? A kind of studio secret weapon?
In the past there was no certain piece of kit that really helped define our sound; it was more the way we worked. Up until making our first album we spent ages trawling through sample CDs and isolating single shot sounds we liked such as a bass note or a snare drum and building sound banks that way. We’d then pick sounds we wanted and arrange them into beats, bass lines, riffs and melodies. Once we started making our first album we began using some of the synths built into Fl Studio (v5 at the time). This is really reflected in the techno tracks on the album where synth lines are twisted and manipulated over time.
Over the years people have asked us “what plug-in did you use to get that bass line?” and such things and we always said that we never used plug-ins because we didn’t think FL Studio worked with them. While doing a new EP for 2020 Vision recently Ralph suggested that our basslines had maybe fallen behind the quality of the new wave of music out there and we needed to step it up a gear. Thinking that we needed a more powerful synth to get better sounds we thought we’d have to move to Mac and Logic which was a little daunting because of the time and money it would take to get up to speed.
Just by chance we stumbled upon something on the internet about using 3rd party VST plug-ins in FL Studio and on researching further we found you could do it all along! After doing lots of comparisons we decided on Rob Papen’s Albino 3 and then a couple of months later Subboombass and we can honestly say it’s been the most important investments of our musical career. Having these new tools at our disposal has opened up so many doors and given our sound a real refinement. We’re very excited about the music that we’re making as a result.
Does the dance music industry these days dictate that artists need to be both creative artists and businessmen in equal measure?
In short, and by and large, yes. In years gone by there was a tiny fraction of the producers, DJs, live acts and labels there are nowadays. However there weren’t necessarily less music buyers, in fact when digital thievery is accounted for there was definitely more.
This meant there was nowhere near as much choice for those music buyers, making it much easier for tracks to stand out. We remember record shopping in the 90s and having a stack of maybe 40 vinyl to go through each week, compared with thousands of digital files each week these days. This also meant there were more gigs to go around. Some DJs would handpick a gig from 20 or more offers for every weekend night of the year. Some of these guys didn’t even make music – imagine that!
So these lucky few could afford to have a manager, a PR company, several agents, someone to manage and run their record label, someone for publishing, someone to carry their record bag, a lifestyle guru and whatever else they could dream up.
Try doing that these days and even if you’re successful musically there won’t be anything left for you, so artists have to quickly learn how to do a lot of these jobs for themselves. We think this is why a lot of the superstar DJs of the 90s sunk into obscurity when the industry changed. Whereas others, the likes of Steve Lawler, Dubfire or Richie Hawtin emphatically swam: through the combination of their creative prowess and business minds.
As a touring artist who can regularly find themselves on different continents in the same week, how do you strike a balance between your touring schedule and time in the studio?
Touring is bread and butter; there isn’t much money in selling music anymore because even if you make a hit, the rate of steals to sales is overwhelmingly massive. There’s little doubt that producing music makes you a more interesting prospect for promoters so striking a balance is essential. It’s as simple as when we’re not on the road, we make music. We sometimes take laptops and make stuff on the road but you really don’t have enough time to get into it and without your studio gear it’s difficult.
Our typical week, Monday to Wednesday 7am – 6pm doing emails, running our label, admin stuff (like this interview, although a new track is on repeat and being tweaked as we type) and in the studio. Thursday we get down in the basement with the DJ set up and mix together, planning music that works together and sharing (not file sharing!) new tracks we’ve picked up during the week. Friday we’ll have a bit of time in the morning to tie up loose ends and then go to an airport somewhere to go on gigs and return Sunday night.
Who’s currently rocking your world as a producer and why?
Maceo Plex has a really nice sound at the moment blending the funky disco vibes with raw techno sounds which keeps both girls and boys interested on the dance floor.
Huxley is really the king of jacking deep house for us at the moment, there’s rarely a set we play without one of his tracks in it.
Eats Everything / Coat of Arms has really brought a great new sound to the table fusing the lush warmth of deep house with the raw bass energy of dubstep and D& B as only a Bristol lad could. And let’s not forget another Bristolian, Julio Bashmore.
Waifs & Strays and FCL both hold a lot of respect from us and have remixed our next single on our own imprint Gruuv.
What one piece of kit or plug-in can you not live without?
At the moment the two aforementioned synths by Rob Papen, they’ve both been game changers for us!
When building a track how do you normally work? Do you start with the drums and build from that?
It’s one of two ways, we’ll either have a sound / sample / vocal that we want to build the track around, something that we’ve either stumbled across that’s inspired us or perhaps a vocal from a recent session we’ve recorded.
If we’re starting from a totally blank canvas we’ll usually trawl through some patches on a synth until we find a nice sound and try and make a bassline to build a beat around.
Do you prefer to use loops or one-shots? Do you use samples or sound design from scratch, or a mix of both? Do you like to record your own sounds?
We’ve done all of the above, mainly sound design from scratch these days with a few one shot samples and the very occasional loop which has been deconstructed and rearranged.
Any advice on monitoring? Quiet? Loud? Do you prefer flat and boring speakers, headphones or big, phat and chunky monitors? Do you reference on multiple systems?
We don’t have our studio monitors stupidly loud. It’s always important to listen to the mix in headphones too so you can get a better feel for how the sound is spaced and if everything has enough room to breathe for maximum clarity and punch. We then test our tracks against other tracks during our DJ sessions in the basement. If they pass that test then we take them to the most important stage of all – the club.
If you could give one piece of advice to yourself when you started out in music, what would it be?
Don’t snap up every remix that comes along; think carefully whether it’s right for you musically
Firestarter: Audiojack talk about creating originality and their latest EP (Robot)
For the latest installment of extracts from our forthcoming book – Firestarter – we caught up with innovative dance music producers Audiojack to talk originality, free tracks and their latest hot vinyl release on GRUUV records. When it comes to finding that original voice Audiojack are a duo who epitomise the impact that thinking outside the box can have on your productions. They broke onto the scene with their standout track ‘Robot‘ on Matt Tolfreys Leftroom Records back in 2005, a tune that destroyed dancefloors with its signature hook, gaining support from A-list DJs. This is what they had to say…
Originality is everything in music, being just like everybody else will get you nowhere so try and think outside the box. If you make house music, try and get some sounds that are usually used in other genres like Hip Hop or Dub Step and try to incorporate them into your productions to create a more unique sound. It might work, it might not but when it does you’ll stand out from the crowd.
- What was your break through moment, and how did it happen?
We were making music influenced by the likes of Switch, King Roc and stuff on 2020 Vision back in 2004 / 5 and one day we were messing around with some of the effects on the music program and came across a type of delay that got all kinds of interesting sounds out when we put different drums in at different pitches. So we made a pure techno track out of it for nothing more than fun really, not expecting any interest to be taken. When we played a disc of our tracks to Jay Kilka in our local record shop Tribe he wasn’t too bothered about any of it until Robot came on and then his ears perked up and he said he thought his mate would like to sign it. 6 months later we had a big hit on Leftroom and and our break onto the scene.
Audiojack (UK) is a pair of hot Underground Techno producer/DJs who bring the aural feasting of the much loved and respected electronic genre to the dance floors of clubs around the world. Delivering beats that are from the deeper realms of House through to driving peak time Techno. This month they hit South Africa for events in Cape Town 25 May and Joburg 28 May 2011 accompanied and duly complimented by local export Afroboogie! I caught up with them for a little one on one to get the low down on where they at head space and music wise as well as their opinions on what to expect from South Africa.
Have you worked with Afroboogie or any other SA producer/DJ’s before? What do you know about the SA music scene and what do you expect from the SA audience?
This will be our first time in SA and to date we haven’t worked with any SA producers or DJs before so it will be a virginal trip for us. As this is the case we don’t know much about the scene either. It’s the only continent we haven’t played on before though so it’s exciting to finally be getting the experience of coming and lots of positive comments have been made by SA clubbers such as “Finally Audiojack are coming to SA” so hopefully we will be well received.
You are known for your special brand of Techno. What was the inspiration sound wise behind your debut album, Radio and how has your sound developed since then?
I guess our music has always had to have energy and worked on the dancefloor but we’ve made everything from Deep house to peak time techno depending on what we’ve felt like at the time or what kind of sound we’re currently playing in our DJ sets. The inspiration for our album was to create an electronic music journey which incorporated all of the styles we’d used in the past.
The structure of the album was designed to be heard as a single piece where on track led onto the other with interludes linking each, this was inspired by albums which we listened to growing up such as Pink Floyds Dark side of the moon which take you on a journey from start to finish.
Tell us about your LIVE show that is set to debut this year- how do you intend to showcase your catalog of music and how is it different to the current live shows on circuit?
Sadly though due to the way that digital dance music is now bought, people didn’t buy the album as a whole and listened as we intended to the whole thing, they just cherry picked the tracks they liked on Beatport, itunes or which ever download sites and didn’t experience the album as a whole
As we haven’t heard all of the live shows that people are doing it’s difficult to say how it will compare but it will be a build up from the more down tempo tracks to the peak timers with live remixing going on throughout so no track is exactly the same as heard before and each set will be individual too. We also hope to incorporate a visual accompaniment but that side of it hasn’t been started yet, we’re still working on the audio at the moment but its sounding good so far so watch this space.
Over 400 DJ performances across 5 continents is quite the feat! Have you experienced some life-changing moments; meeting people, seeing other ways of life- has any of this had a distinct personal affect on your way of life?
In more ways than you can imagine, we now eat, cook and introduce food to other from around the world that we would never have known existed let along tried had we not traveled as extensively as we have. We’ve seen sights such as Igucu falls in Brazil and Mount Fuji in Japan or Alcatraz in San Francisco that we wouldn’t have been able to.
We have good friends all the way around the world and know our way around places like Melbourne, Tokyo and New York better than some English cities that are less than 50 miles from our home town of Leeds. The list goes on but all in all we’re far worldlier and culturally enriched people because of the international traveling and experience we’ve partaken in.
How has travelling influenced you musically- both separately and as a production duo?
We’ve been influenced lots by seeing what music gets people going in different parts of the world, for example a gig in Spain in 2007 where we were playing electronic tracks such as White Noise and Coastline from our first 2020 EP, we saw Dj’s playing minimal techno and how people reacted to it and that inspired us to make tracks like Enter the Drum and Japan 4.
A lot of our inspiration comes from music we hear at parties in our home town Leeds because there is such a rich and upfront music scene here you can hear new music all the time and with out realizing you’ll inadvertently write something in that side because it’s gone in your ears and been buried somewhere in your subconscious only to resurface in the studio.
What are the three things you definitely have to take with you when on tour to make your life and journey that little bit more comfortable?
Obviously you need the essentials like your music, headphones and some clean clothes and toiletries but the things that make your traveling more comfortable and less arduous are entertainment items such as a book, portable DVD player or handheld games console. These really get your through times stuck at airports with delayed flights or on planes where there is no on board entertainments absent or as on most flights the in flight magazines are crap.
No doubt the opportunity has arisen for you to produce on the more commercial spectrum of dance music, what is it that keeps you true to the Underground?
Basically because we hate commercial music, underground music is for people who love music and it’s created by people with truly great minds and talent not by people who understand what flicks the switches of ignorant people and know they can make money with it by selling out and making cheesy mainstream atrocities.
Sure we too know all of the ingredients to making a commercial record that would put a load of money in our banks but we’d have to walk around in shame. It’s all about honesty, integrity and staying true to yourself and your roots.
What are your top 3 tunes on your personal play lists this week?
Kevin Knapp – Like this (Audiojack remix)
Julio Bashmore – Battle for middle you
HOSH – Antonelli Screaming (Steve Bug remix)
Julio Bashmore – Battle for middle you
HOSH – Antonelli Screaming (Steve Bug remix)
So you guys met in Ibiza over 10 years ago how did it evolve from being just another 2 DJs from the UK doing an Ibiza summer stint to your current level of DJ superstardom?
Yeah that’s it in a nut shell but to give a little more detail, we met in Ibiza both Djing there for the summer at a basic level and became friends and stayed in contact after that.
The following summer I was sick of living where I (Jamie) was living as there were no more opportunities to progress with Djing and at the time Rich was running the music in a bar and needed a DJ so Jamie moved over and did that. Then when that ran it’s course we both moved to Leeds.
We sought gigs around the city with out much progression again because we didn’t have much to offer for people to put us on at big events as we were unknown at the time. So in the summer of 2004 we sat down on a summers day in the park getting drunk and discussing what we needed to do to forge a career as DJs and three options seemed apparent, running a successful night or record label, both of which required lots of upfront capital, the third option was to write some music and get some records signed.
Now as we’d both had musical experience during our childhoods and Jamie had dabbled in music production on an old commodore Amiga in the early 90s we figured this was the best option.
So we got some current music production software and locked ourselves away for a year learning it and making tracks. After about 40 tracks we felt ready to start sending some stuff to labels which was all fruitless.
We went into our local record store and played some tracks to Jay Kilka who ran the shop for nothing more than some feedback and he was really excited about Robot and said he might want to sign it to a record label he’d started with Matt Tolfrey and after speaking to Matt they agreed so we did and then the next summer it was released and went to number 1 on Beatport for 6 weeks thus launching our career. We haven’t looked back since
Where have you got lined up musically for the rest of the year and what’s on the gig guide for the next few months, being a much anticipated HOT European summer has arrived?
We’ve just done gigs at Watergate in Berlin and Cargo in London, we’ve got a gig at our home club Back to Basics this weekend and as well as the tour in SA, a Mexico / US tour coming up and lots of others to, you can check out the full diary along with DJ mixes to download and more info at our Myspace page. As far as music is concerned we’re working on original tracks for Gruuv and 2020 Vision which should be out over the summer.
To view Contakt Event details on Audiojack click here
INTERVIEW: Mary Honeychild
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