- Drum n Bass with a global appeal -
It may sound stereotypical, but Jason Cambridge, aka A Sides, is a man who needs no introduction. Bursting on to the rave scene back in 1990 with warehouse anthems like “Feeling Good” released locally on East London’s now defunct De Underground Records, he has witnessed the entire life cycle of electronic music – its elevation from dingy warehouses to lavish clubs, the rise of permutations like Big Beat, Electro, Techno and House, and seeing the culture’s illumination from its original mystery. Hundreds of his tracks have been released on labels like Hospital Records, Metalheadz, and Hardleaders, as well as on his own London-based label, Eastside Records, demonstrating time and again his flexibility in the studio.
We sat down with him after Natural Selection 003 at The National Underground in New York City to find out more about his early adoption of Serato, what to expect from his next release, and how to assuage cranky club owners in Colombia. Hit the jump for a full video preview of forthcoming LP Mysterious Vibes and KuwabaraDnB‘s exclusive interview!:
KuwabaraDnB: So, Jason, you just played The National Underground in NYC, how do you feel the night went?
A Sides: To be honest with you, the DJ booth was so small, I was stuck behind my laptop and I have no idea what was going on in the crowd. There were people there, there was a good vibe, I was enjoying it, but I was in a world of my own back there, I had no idea how people were reacting. I had my laptop covering my face and I couldn’t see anything…it SOUNDED like people were having fun though!
KDnB: Something I wanted to ask about is your association with Serato. For example, you go on your Myspace right now and it says you’re basically the “ambassador” for Serato [laughs]. How has that affected the way that you play your music live?
A-Sides at home with Serato on the decks.
A Sides: I find the more time goes on, the more my DJ set is starting to turn into a performance. I’m using a few Midi controllers now which I never used to do. I just played 70 tracks in two hours on turntables without any sync functions! I use my laptop which runs Scratch Live then I use the Novation Dicers for jumping to cue points and looping on the fly. Sometimes beat rolling as well but I don’t really do that much as it can get a bit too much after a while. I also just invested in an Akai LPD8, which I’m using to operate the internal F/X in Scratch Live, I also use it to turn my loops on and off as well. I do a lot of looping, I play one or two minutes of a track. Some tracks I just play 32 bars of. There’s certain tracks I only like one part of or I might just like the second drop. I come from a hip-hop background so I sometimes incorporate some of the skills I learned from playing hip-hop. With certain tracks, you might find a 4-bar loop at the end of just the beats, so I’ll mix in with that 4-bar loop and then I’ll drop the same track on the other deck and mix it from the beginning there as well, like a vocal intro. And my setup makes it easier for me to do things like that.
KDnB: When you are planning out those 70 tracks you mentioned earlier, do you go for some kind of emotion or theme, a character that you want to portray in that set?
A Sides: No, I’ve been on tour since the Fourth of July, and I’m always being exposed to new music. As I’ve been playing shows I start to get more comfortable with the new music. When you’re DJing two or three times a week you start to get to know the tracks you play well, you get comfortable with your set and you learn what works with what. A lot of times I play new tracks on the fly in a set, I just throw them in there and it’s more freestyle. That’s what makes it fun for me. It’s all about experimenting, improvisation, and messing around with things.
KDnB: You said you played in Boston last night, you’ve been on tour since July 4th and you’ve played plenty of other places on your tour to promote your new album Mysterious Vibes [Album preview below]. Tell us a little bit about it.
A Sides: I haven’t released any tracks since my last album, Worldwide. The new album Mysterious Vibes features 12 tracks. There’s a collaboration on there with MC Fats [True Playaz | Eastside Records], another collaboration with Mark de Clive-Lowe [Mashibeats | Tru Thoughts], who’s an established keyboard player from New Zealand. He does a lot of broken beat, the West London house style and performs live as well; Mark basically builds tracks on the fly, he is a really talented guy who I worked with on a Sciclone project back in the 90′s. There are also a couple of collaborations with a friend of mine from Rotterdam who I’ve been doing a hip-hop project with, his name is Mac DVD. I took a couple of the tracks that we made which were originally hip-hop beats, and I’ve been turning those into Drum n Bass tunes. “Ain’t Nobody”, “Roasted”, and “Hibiscus” all came from downtempo hip-hop tracks we made.
There’s a couple of other collaborations as well. One is called “Knowledge and Wisdom”, which my uncle Jah Free [Universal Egg | Jah Free Music] did the vocals for. He makes dub music, roots reggae. It was lucky, really, I was flicking through one of his albums and the vocal just came up on one of his tracks. It was at the end, a little interlude vocal saying “knowledge and wisdom”, and it sat perfectly on the track. And the other track, “Roots and Culture” is another collaboration track which has an Old School Jungle/Ragga feel to it. That vocal was supplied by an Italian Reggae singer named Dan I [Imperial Roots | Jah Vision] who is actually another connect through my uncle. He actually made a track with Dan I which I liked so I asked if I could use the vocal and he gave me the all clear.
KDnB: When I listened to “Ain’t Nobody” [listen below], the first thing that came to mind was Break’s 2008 track “All Around”. I know you’ve worked extensively with him in the past, basically nurturing his career early on. If you watch any interview with a producer right now, they’ll say they want to work with Break. How have you affected his music, and vice versa?
Ain’t Nobody (Clip) by djasides
A Sides: Break hasn’t affected anything that I do at all really. He gave Eastside a fresh sound and some extra recognition back in the day which was a good thing. When I first heard of him via the Social Security guys he hadn’t had any releases out, he was developing his sound which I though was good. I recognized his talent and signed “Cocktail” for my Eastside Jamz Vol. 2 [2002] compilation, I then put a lot of his early music out on Eastside then a lot of people started to notice him and he started working with guys like Klute, Teebee, Fierce, etc and continued to blow up. Break featured on a track on my last album, Worldwide, we basically we worked on it together at my studio and then we sat on it for a while as he moved to Bristol and then I finished it off two years later. I love Break, I love the tunes that he does, but his style is different than mine. I’d like to have stuff sound like his though, his production sounds really good!
KDnB: You’ve partnered with Miami producer Juan Basshead on your new label Basshead Music. I’m actually from Miami myself, I’ve seen Otto von Schirach [Basshead Music | Cock Rock Disco] countless times [“He's a fucking maniac!”]. What’s coming out that we need to keep on our radar? Anything like 12th Planet [Basshead Music | Smog Records], I know that Total Science [C.I.A. | Metalheadz] is slated for a release, are they working on a dubstep track?
Miami imprint Basshead Music
A Sides: Our aim is to try and keep the style varied but quality music. We have a bunch of new material which will be released this year on Basshead. Our next single will be a remix 12″ which see’s myself remixing “Gizmo“ for Datsik [Basshead Music | Rottun Recordings] plus on the flip side we will have DJ Silvers‘ remix of “Control“ by 12th Planet & EMU [Basshead | Smog Records]. Following that we have new releases scheduled from up and coming Miami-based producers Animal Krackerz and Batstep plus another Drum n Bass 12″ supplied by Explicit [Dread Recordings].
We really want to do some new work with Datsik, we actually released his first single and he has since blown up! Obviously 12th Planet, Otto Von Schirach, Hulk [Basshead Music] and BassNectar [OM Records | Amorphous Music] would also be good to work with again.
And yes, we do have some dubstep tracks from Total Science, but I am unsure if they will ever see release; maybe on a Basshead compilation. We signed another track from them as well which is an R&B/Hip-Hop tune called “Hold Ya Tongue“. Juan Basshead is good friends with DJ Sneak [Blu Funk Productions | Magnetic Recordings] and is getting him to do a house remix of it and we will soon be having another remix done of that so it will probably see release next year some time.
I focus more on the Drum n Bass side of things and I let Juan concentrate on the Dubstep side of the label. He knows that style of music better than I do and is really involved in the Dubstep movement here in Miami.
KDnB: What is the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you anytime you’ve been spinning? Mutt recently told us about a wild Russian water park.
He's survived exploding wires, cave cops, and Colombian strip clubs.
A Sides: I’ve been to some crazy places and seen some crazy shit, but while DJing, the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me is unplugging the CD-J and the fucking wire breaking and exploding in my hand. My whole hand was black but I didn’t get burnt or anything! That was in Tallinn, Estonia. I also remember playing in a mine in Budapest and the cops coming and raiding the event. As they made an announcement to the crowd over the P.A. system I hit the pitch shift button on the mixer and turned down the monitors in the booth so they couldn’t hear it!
There was also this one time, the day before a show in Colombia, where we got locked in a strip club. A bunch of us went out to this strip club in Bogota and at the end they tried telling us we never paid for our drinks, but we did! It was confusing because everybody’s arguing in Spanish. We had some friends who spoke it, they’re arguing, telling club owner to call the cops. We then went to leave and they locked us inside the club and all the strippers came out into this reception area where we were all sitting and it got a bit tense. In the end, the owners gave in and let us go. Just as we were leaving, the cops showed up so we left quick.
You know, I think crazy people have more crazy stories; I’m not like that. I’m pretty chill. Come on, I’m over 40 years old, I’m still doing what I’m doing. If I had done the whole drink and drugs thing, if that was my kind of lifestyle, I probably wouldn’t still be touring now.
A-Sides at work
KDnB: Do you prefer to play a smaller or larger venue?
A Sides: I like both. I like playing festivals, those are cool. I haven’t really played many festivals though. Every year I play at Sun & Bass, which is a 7-day Drum n Bass party in Sardinia with a real family vibe to it. That is probably my favourite place for me to play now and is always like my homecoming as I spend so much time traveling. I played a 40,000 person festival in Brazil with DJ Marky. That was in Sao Paolo. It was called ‘Spirit of London’, those guys in Brazil throw big parties.
dBridge [Autonomic | Exit Records] and I did a nice festival in Germany last year called ‘Fusion’ where they sell out 250,000 tickets without even announcing the line up each year. Other good festivals I have played are Sziget in Hungary, Nuke In Austria, and Phat in Nelson, New Zealand. I also remember playing another show in Germany, I can’t remember the name, but it’s at an old American missile base not far from Frankfurt. I played with Africa Islam [Electric Kingdom | Modul] and Tyree Cooper [Supa Dupa | Incase Recordings]. I love the festival vibe and the unity there how they bring people together.
I have played a lot of big clubs such as Fabric or Ministry Of Sound in London, Limelight in New York, Mekka in Miami, and Buzz in Washington DC. Those are always good vibes, but I still love playing the 100-capacity venues which always go off and are more for the purists. I see it as being all about the overall vibe and not the amount of people who show up. I’ll give you the same performance no matter what!
KDnB: Lastly: in terms of Mysterious Vibes, anything else you’re releasing on Eastside Records, Basshead Music, any shout-outs, tracks or collaborations you want to hype up?
Temperature’s Rising Ft MC Fats (Clip) by djasides
A Sides: I really like “Temperature’s Rising (ft. MC Fats)” and “Ain’t Nobody”, that’s gonna be the first single off the album. The full album will be available for download from October 10 and the single will be released the week after on 17th. Look out for the Mysterious Vibes tour coming soon (Contact mark@esp-agency.com for further info). Also look out for a new remix I am working on for Warner Brothers. “Need You” is by Kevin Field and is being given an A Sides workout as we speak!
Shout-outs to all the guys at ST Holdings, Seed in New York, ESP International, all my Miami fam: Juan Basshead, Jumanji, JsinJ, Harold, Fat Boy, Yolanda & Woo Woo! My L.A. Stamina Crew Jeremy, MC Rhino & Big Black. Shout-out to all @Serato HQ, all my Sun & Bass fam, all my New Zealand fam, Bassdrive fam, everyone that books me, especially the people in the States and Canada! I get more love here than anywhere else love you guys!!!! And a big shout-out to all the people who buy my music and support!
KDnB: Jason, thanks again for joining KuwabaraDnB tonight, come back to NYC soon!
A-Sides: No problem!
Lesson learned: don’t mess with wiring in Estonia! Mark October 10 on the calendar for A Sides‘ new album Mysterious Vibes and be sure to check out the upcoming releases from DJ Silvers, Animal Krackerz, Explicit and more on Miami label Basshead Music!
Watch for it October 10!
Stay tuned to KuwabaraDnB for an interview with the groovy MC Robert Manos, New York hip-hop producer Rick Rezin, and champion moombahton supplier DJ A-Mac!
