As a luminary of your craft for over ten years, you’re likely to have experienced most of what life has to offer for elite, globe trotting DJs and producers. What’s the ride been like until now?
When I started out back in 1997 I didn’t expect I would be lucky enough to still be in the music business fifteen years later. By 1997 I think I’d only visited three countries, now I regularly touch down in 40 plus a year!
It’s been a very interesting time and a lot of hard work, but the rewards are rich if you’re passionate about what you’re doing. Writing music has always been the most important thing for me, but the DJ-ing aspect of my career (which started a few years later) is the really fun part. Who wouldn’t want to travel the world meeting people passionate about music every weekend?
That said, it’s not all glamour or rock n roll either. There’s plenty of mundane moments along the way, (mainly at airports) and being a DJ/music producer is never just a job, it’s a lifestyle choice.
You’re renowned for your ability to create tracks which bridge the gap between the dance floor and the singles charts. What, for you, are the essential ingredients of a thoroughly thumping dance song?
The two key elements are melody and dance-ability. Sounds obvious, but certainly in the Trance scene there never used to be that much groove in a lot of the early tracks. Times have changed and modern trance has grooved-up. What I aim to do with most of tracks is combine a memorable emotive melody with rhythm and baselines you can actually dance too. As for chart success, you can never be certain. The record has to have that unforgettable hook and you have to have a bit of luck along the way.
What are your thoughts on the current EDM/Trance scene at large right now?
Generally EDM has blown up massively in the past couple of years and has crossed over into popular culture. At the really commercial end, DJs are the new popstars, and many don’t appear to actually DJ as such anymore with their live shows becoming more like pop concerts. Whatever your views on that, I guess it can only be a good thing that EDM is in the spotlight, although that said, where there’s more money to be made the irritating behind-the-scenes politics only ever increases. There’s been a definite blurring of what a DJ actually is, especially due to the changes in technology. With the art of vinyl mixing well and truly gone and inserting CDs into the decks even appearing a little old fashioned, the game keeps on changing. The new technology has empowered some DJs to be extra creative when they perform, with live editing and effects, whereas with others it’s made them somewhat lazy. I’ve seen some DJs literally pressing play on an Ableton arrangement, with all the tracks in sync and the order pre-arranged. That’s not the spirit of DJ-ing. For me, (in the Trance/House scenes anyway) DJ-ing has always been less about mixing skills though and more about track selection and set progression and being able to surprise and entertain the crowd with your own edits or exclusive finds (and without the use of cakes and a rubber dinghy Mr Aoki.
As far as the Trance scene goes, it’s been absorbing influences from house, electro and techno for some time, and this has really come to a head in the past year or so with a shift to a more house-y feel. On the other side, house has been becoming more epic with a lot of tracks including trance elements so the two scenes have collided with an emergence of the horribly named ‘Trouse’ sound. Personally I feel the scene has gone a bit too obsessed with making Trouse, and those chasing purely commercial success have used it as a bridge to market themselves to the wider house scene. Nothing wrong with that, each to their own, but it has left quite a large part of the scene yearning for music that means something to them; well produced Trance music with emotive melodies is actually in short supply.
Your record label, Lange Recordings, continues to excel. If there’s one necessity any release has to entail in order for it to bear the Lange Recordings banner, what would that be?
Expanding the label has been one of my missions in the past twelve months and I’m very pleased with how it’s going. Next year will see the label step up it’s release schedule to around three to four releases a month. I wouldn’t want to release anymore than that as we like to focus on promoting each record individually, and we have quite a high quality threshold anyway. I liaise with my A&R team over what we’re going to release but ultimately I have to like the record for it to be released on the label. The label’s sound does span quite a spectrum, we release some progressive stuff through to quite driving material. The key thing is that the quality is there.
The last album you released was 2010’s ‘Harmonic Motion’. Do you have have another album planned for release any time soon?
Yes, I’m currently writing artist album number three. I plan to release it in 2013 but so far I’m only three or four tracks in so there’s not a lot more I can say about it at the moment!
You’ll be in South Africa playing at EDM Fest on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of this month. What was your experience like playing to this corner of the world before when you were her, and what do you have planned for the shows?
I played in Jo’burg and Cape Town during Armin Van Buuren’s ASOT 500 tour. That was an incredible weekend! As well as visiting those two cities again for EDM Fest, I’m also making my début in Durban this month. I’ve got some new tracks of mine and plenty of label exclusives to play, as well as bringing some of my recent releases such as ‘We Are Lucky People’, ‘Destination Anywhere’, and ‘Crossroads’. I’m super excited to be returning and by the looks of all the comments and tweets I’ve been getting during the past few weeks, the crowd is really up for it again. See you all very soon!
EDM Fest Tour details:
14 December – The Wavehouse in Durban
15 December – Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg
16 December – CTICC in Cape Town
INTERVIEW: Jayson Geland
