Onze laatste liverecensie.
Onze laatste albumrecensie.
Ons laatste interview.
Onze laatste video.
How does it feel to have your debut album in the shops after all those
years of hard work?
Jürgen: "It's done, and that's a good thing. It's a good
feeling."
Alex: "It's a good feeling, but you can never be completely
satisfied about it. That's impossible. But it feels good now it's done. We
feel free again for new things, for remixes, or a new album. When you work
intensely on your music like we did, every day, every night, it can be
stressy. Your family and your friends don't see you anymore. And now with
this interview tour it's really refreshing. Maybe at the end of it, it will
be different (laughs). But it's refreshing to talk about it. Now there's a
little distance between us and the album, and it's good to talk about it
because it shows us that people are interested in what we are doing."
Jürgen: "It's not like we are thinking let's have a rest now.
We feel like we can move on now. We're already talking about the next album,
and we have remixes to do, smaller projects. It's more a process than: one
thing done, stop, and start the next thing. It's a process."
You talked about pressure. These days you can hear Jazzanova in shops,
supermarkets, and at the hairdresser. Was there more pressure knowing so
many people were watching what you're doing?
Alex: "We didn't really check everything people were saying
about us. We always thought that there's so much other good music around,
not everybody is watching what we are doing. Just a few guys, those who
bought the remix CD. And that is not enough to have the biggest pressure.
Of course, you need a bit of pressure from colleagues from other countries.
They always teased us and asked us when the album was coming. It became a
running gag, but now they are really quiet (laughs). When I was in London
at the end of last year, and I could tell everybody the album was done, it
was a surprise for them. But actually we need that pressure, we need
deadlines. Pressure is good."
Jazzanova consist of six people, with producers and DJs. Are the DJs
also involved in the production of the album?
Alex: "Definitely. The producers do their stuff in the studio
without having us there. We always do jokes about that by saying the DJs
will bring the coffee and create a good vibe. But it's very important to
discuss the ideas, to play a game of ping pong with the idea, and have
something going on with the two persons in the studio."
Jürgen: "We see things differently from the producers. The DJs
use their own tracks when they spin somewhere. Roskow has his own projects,
and it's totally different from what Jazzanova is doing. The interaction
between the DJs and the producers, but also between, like, Alex, Roskow and
me, is very important."
Alex: "And because we [the DJs] travel so much, we know
all the singers, we're the ones who meet them somewhere on the other side
of the world. The DJs are responsible for getting contacts with people who
you can make a track with. We also run the label and make all the practical
arrangements. Even if a lot of the Jazzanova music is not made for the
dancefloor, the DJs know what will work, and whatnot."
What do you expect from this album in terms of commercial success?
Alex: "Success will happen if you promote something, just like
we are promoting the new album now. Sometimes good things can come from
success, sometimes it's a bad thing. We like to play in little clubs. But
since we released the remix album we were sometimes booked as main acts,
where we have one-and-a-half hours in front of two thousand people. But we
don't really like that. In those sets we have to find a way to present
dance music, but it still has to have our approach. And that's very
difficult, because in big rooms or clubs there are other rules. The
atmosphere is more like that of rave, and to create that with our songs is
very difficult. To get around that problem we have the whole family, the
movement, let's say, the music lovers movement. From Progress in London,
Kyoto over Philadelphia, Versatile in France, or Straight Ahead in Zurich: Everybody plays his role in the whole
team, a worldwide team, and sometimes
we feel like we prefer pleasing the specialists instead of playing places
where people like 4Hero should play. Their music fits better in big rooms
than ours."
The Sonar Kollektiv acts as a sort of hub for all your activities. How
important is it to have something to fall back on?
Alex: "It's very important. We think you need to have people
around you when you're making music. We always have people around us who
can tell us when we are on the wrong track. They'll tell us to think about
it again. That's quite important actually, because it brings us down to
earth, to a point where we can breathe normally. Things went very quick for
us. And then it's especially important to have people around you who can
bring you back with your two feet on the ground. It's the same way with the
label work for the Sonar Kollektiv: It brings you down, literally (laughs).
It's like normal work."
Jazzanova has already perfected the art of sampling. Are you now
considering doing more of a live set, the way Beanfield does?
Alex: "Actually there are not many ways in which you can
translate the music from the studio to the stage. I saw Matthew Herbert
perform and that's quite impressive, but we can't go onstage, press a
button, and do this or that. That's impossible. When we were doing the album
we were always thinking about how we would present it. And eventually it
will be like a collection of good ideas, just like the album is just a
collection of good ideas. What is possible? What is a good DJ about? What
is his role? What can we do? We like to see it from different points of
views, because the role of the DJ in our society has become so important.
It has even become tiring to see. When you look at London and people like
Fatboy Slim and Seb Fontaine, it's tiring, and it's time to see it in an
ironic way. There has to be somebody who tells everybody that the DJ is
just a normal person. He's just a selector who had the luck to play good
music and create a good feeling, that's it. We never wanted to be bigger
than life."
When I saw Jazzanova play last summer, two of the three DJs just sat
down at the front, and people came up to you and just talked to you. That's
not something you see a lot.
Alex: "We like that, that we can still have contact with the
audience. But it's different now, because when we are doing all these
interviews, our face will be in the newspapers, and the normal reaction from
a lot people will be: Jazzanova's in the newspaper so they are no longer
our voice and we can no longer talk to them. That's a normal reaction but
we don't want that. Therefore, it's important that people read this
interview and listen to our record."
Jürgen: "When we started DJ-ing, producing, we were always
looking abroad to other guys. The communication with guys like Rainer
Truby, the networking, it's really important. How do these people see this
kind of music?"
How important is the feedback you get from that network when it comes to
making your own music?
Jürgen: "I think the network is important for openmindedness,
which is important for creativity. Everyone has another way of working. We
use our own method. When we are in the studio it's only two of us, a really
small circle. But when we are out of the studio, there are the other guys,
friends, partners, and they give a lot of impressions, ideas, and critiques.
Then we go back to the studio, just the two of us, with all the
inspiration. And then we do something with it. When we are in the studio we
have this playground feeling. We play around with ideas, influences of
others, and try to create new ideas out if it. That's our way of working.
And finally we take our songs outside of the Jazzanova circle; that's the
next step. When it goes outside the circle and we present it, people either
like it or they don't like it. And we will ask them why, but it's not like
people have to say "Yes, I like it." If, for instance, Seji says a track is
not okay, then I'll ask him why, and I'll take some of his remarks to Axel.
But music is also a very subjective thing. Of course you have signals that
tell you a track is done, good or not; if it's quality or not. But there's
also a lot of taste involved."
The album features artists from all over the world. Were the tracks also
recorded in studios all over the world?
Jürgen: "Actually the singers came to us, except Ursula
Rucker."
Alex: "Her track was recorded in Philly, because she hates
flying."
Were the singers also involved in the writing of the songs?
Jürgen: "Yes. When the singer came to the studio, he was also
involved in the development of the song. It was always two guys in a studio
with a singer and Axel doing all the mixing of the tracks. It was also
something new for us to work with musicians, with old-school
professionals who work with notes. It was like, oh you need notes? And it
was a real experience for us. We'd like to work with more live musicians
for our next album."
You gave a lot of Jazzanova fans a bit of scare with the 'That Night/Days to come' 12''. Some
people were afraid that Jazzanova was developing more into dance. Was that
deliberate?
Alex: "The 12'' is a bit of a joke. We just decided to put the
songs out, because we knew we had a lot of good bass songs. The actual joke
behind it is that the two tracks are not on the album. Sometimes we feel
that everybody expects everything to be normal, and everyone expects you to
be normal. It's all about expectations. Everyone says there has to be a
Jazzanova album, and everyone says it has to sound like this or that. But we
like to surprise people, and that's why we did the 12'', which sounds
different from the things we did in the past. And now the album is coming
and it's totally different again. The fact that people are surprised brings
the energy back to them. Then they will listen carefully again. It's an
attempt to make people think again. There's so much good music around that
people need reference points. They like this track and that track, so they
feel like they can trust this or that artist and expect more of the same.
We have to surprise the people and make them think about it again."
With the 12'' included, you made three songs with Vikter Duplaix. Is he
your favourite singer to work with?
Alex: "We've know him very long now. We first met in Philly,
where he was in the studio with King Britt. When we first heard a track by
Vikter, we dreamt of working with a singer like him. Because that was
something we didn't have yet: songs. We did all the remixes, but we wanted
more, so we decided that we needed singers. We thought about it, went to
Vikter, talked about it to him, and said we wanted to do something together.
So we did two songs when he was over in Germany, and another one later on.
It was also the beginning of a big friendship. It's so much more then just
a pure business relationship."
What are the plans for the future, besides doing more remixes?
Alex:" First we are going to do some remixes, but we are also producing an album for Clara Hill, the singer on 'No Use'."
Jürgen:" There's also another artist on Sonar Kollektiv called 'Amp', who is more a songwriter. There will be a two track ep for which we did the production."
Alex:" Extended Spirit [Axel Reinemer and Stefan Leisering] also have a side project which includes our percussionist, although he doesn't really exist. Everybody kept asking us who did the percussion on our tracks. We always told them we don't have a percussionist, it's all programmed. But they didn't believe us. It was always like: yeah, yeah, yeah, come on, who's the percussionist? So in the end we gave up and said it's this guy called Halfless. So we have a person who is doing an album for Sonar Kollektiv and we call him Halfless (laughs)."
In between is released on april 29th on JCR.
Don't forget to check them out on the following dates:
27.04.2002 | Manchester (UK), Southport Festival
30.04.2002 | Antwerp (Belgium), Mas Que Nada
01.05.2002 | Amsterdam (Netherlands), Paradiso
02.05.2002 | Berlin (Germany), Steinhaus | Album release party
04.05.2002 | Derry (Northern Ireland), Nerve Centre
04.05.2002 | Zürich (Switzerland), Moods
05.05.2002 | Belfast (Northern Ireland), Conor Hall
09.05.2002 | Nagoya (Japan), tbc
10.05.2002 | Osaka (Japan), Dawn
11.05.2002 | Sendai (Japan), tbc
12.05.2002 | Aomori (Japan), tbc
15.05.2002 | Ohita (Japan), tbc
16.05.2002 | Fukuoka (Japan), O/D
17.05.2002 | Kyoto (Japan), Metro
18.05.2002 | Tokyo (Japan), Yellow
19.05.2002 | Hiroshima (Japan), tbc
21.05.2002 | Tokyo (Japan), The Room
24.05.2002 | Hilden (Germany), Hildener Jazz Festival
25.05.2002 | Pfarrkirchen (Germany), Boogalo
25.05.2002 | Birmingham (UK), Medicine Bar
26.05.2002 | Manchester (UK), Band On The Wall
28.05.2002 | Sheffield (UK), Sheffield University
29.05.2002 | Plymouth (UK), Cavern Club
30.05.2002 | Norwich (UK), Waterfront
31.05.2002 | Cardiff (UK), Club Iforbach
01.06.2002 | Winchester (UK), Homelands Festival
02.06.2002 | Bristol (Ireland), Level
06.06.2002 | Edinburgh (UK), La Belle Angele
07.06.2002 | Newcastle (UK), Reds
08.06.2002 | Brighton (UK), Enigma
09.06.2002 | Leicester (UK), Po na na
10.06.2002 | London (UK), Bar Rumba
12.06.2002 | Southampton (UK), Brook
13.06.2002 | Oxford (UK), Ponana
14.06.2002 | London (UK), Fabric
15.06.2002 | Leamington (UK), Sugar
15.06.2002 | Wittstock (Germany), Festival
21.06.2002 | Berlin (Germany), Fete De La Musique
06.07.2002 | Lisboa (Portugal), Optimus Festival @ Hype-Meco
11.07.2002 | Dour (Belgium), Big Stage Festival
12.07.2002 | Montreux (Switzerland), Miles Davies Hall @ Jazz Festival
13.07.2002 | Montreux (Switzerland), Jazz Cafe @ Jazz Festival
25.07.2002 | Gent (Belgium), 10 Days
09.08.2002 | Zürich (Switzerland), Jazz 3000
05.10.2002 | Roma (Italy), Agatha
http://www.kindamuzik.net/interview/jazzanova/jazzanova/1465/
Meer Jazzanova op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/jazzanova
Deel dit artikel: