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Jimpster Interview
House | Thursday 20th September 2012 | Osh
Founder of the record label Freerange Records, this deep house DJ and producer has been making music for the last 20 years. Having just dropped a new release, Joe Le Groove caught up for a chat.
Your journey began way back in the early 90's what music where you listening to before you started making music?
Yeah, my first releases were on UK label Jumpin' and Pumpin' and were pretty raw and basic rave tracks. But I've been making tracks since about '85 when I first got a sequencer for my ZX Spectrum and linked it up to an SH101 and TR808. I guess my first big musical influence was electro from around '82-85 - pretty much the Electro Streetsounds compilations - which I followed religiously. Then later on I got much more into the industrial electronic bands like Nitzer Ebb, Front 242, Tackhead and the whole On-U sound system thing. The first house labels that i got majorly into were Nu Groove and Strictly Rhythm and I was buying these bits at the same time as buying loads of terrible throwaway rave tracks.
Your co-owned award winning record label entitled Freerange with Tom Roberts has been going 15 years, stood the test of time and also has hosted a quality list of producers such as Milton Jackson, Andre Lodemann and many more. What was your original vision for the label and has it changed over the years?
Tom and I are friends from school from the age of 10 and had always been into music together and from an early age we'd discussed running a label with Tom taking care of managing it and me making the music. We got the opportunity to finally make this happen in 1996 when my wife's mum had 2k to invest in a new business. I'd been making a bunch of tracks as part of my college course in Salford so we figured we could launch with three EP's of my own stuff but it soon went on to include other guys that I was meeting in Manchester. This was '96 and we were massively into MoWax, Ninjatune, Compost, Warp as well as more club orientated stuff like what Andy Weatherall and the Dust Brothers (aka Chemical Brothers) were doing. So the musical vision was pretty eclectic and organic which carried on through till the early 2000's when we naturally fell into more deep house territory.
You are currently working on your 5th Studio album, what can people expect to hear?
It's been really nice to work on an LP again after having such a long gap since the last one. It's a chance to experiment a little bit more without the constraints of the dancefloor and to try and create a mood and experience over a longer length of time. The tracks are generally house orientated but I'm trying to get more of a raw, organic and sampled sound into it by recording percussion instruments and also making use of some field recordings. I've also dug out some of my older analogue synths and been recording stuff live as audio rather than sequencing them. just to try and get some happy accidents and randomness in there.
As you have been producing since the early 90's I assume that you still use mostly use hardware as opposed to many producers of today that use a lot of software plug ins?
Not really, no. I've been doing everything on just a mac with Logic for 5 or 6 years so this has been the first project in a while where I've dug out the hardware synths and my old TR808. I still record everything directly in the computer though and mix inside the box.
Where have your travels taken you this year and what would you say was the highlight so far in 2012?
I've had some great gigs in Brazil, Japan and South Africa. I always love playing in Japan as it's such an amazing country, the crowds are very open minded and the food blows my mind! Zoo Project in Ibiza was really special this year as I got to play a 4 hour set in the Seal Pit and the atmosphere was great. Also got to play quite a few cities for the first time such as Skopje, Minsk and also Bali. All three places were very different but all great parties.
Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
A wrinklier version of myself still playing different places at the weekends with plenty of time midweek to indulge my studio activities.
What major projects are in the pipeline for Freerange?
We've just released one of our biggest projects to date in the form of the Out Of The Ashes 5 x vinyl boxset which includes some of the back cat tracks which were all lost in the Sony Warehouse fire in the London riots last year. Apart from my LP we'll also be releasing the 10th and final part in the Freerange Colour Series of compilations in Spring of next year.
If you never went down the road of a music producer, what do you think you would be doing now?
Postman.
You are playing at the uber cool SelectElect party in East london on Saturday, 22 September 2012, what can the crowd expect to hear from you?
Lots of deep and raw basement house with plenty of groove and energy. Lots of upcoming Freerange and Delusions Of Grandeur stuff from the likes of Recloose, 6th Borough Project, KRL, Detroit Swindle...
What has Jimpster you got going on for the rest of 2012?
Finish the LP and a remix for King Britt.
If you were banished to a Desert Island and had to take 3 famous people dead or alive with you, who would you take and why would you take them?
Louie C-K cos he's the funniest person I know right now and I can relate to him trying to bring up two kids, Minnie Ripperton to sing me off to sleep and Ron Hardy so he can teach me how to DJ.
Jimpster - These Times - available from Juno on vinyl - http://www.juno.co.uk/products/467053-01.htm?highlight=JIMPSTER%20THESE%20TIMES and http://www.beatport.com/release/these-times/959052
Out Of The Ashes Boxset - available from our Freerange online store - http://freerangerecords.co.uk/shop/titles/info/235
Freerange show for September.
http://freerangerecords.podomatic.com/entry/2012-09-18T06_45_52-07_00
Joe Le Groove
