Atjazz Interview...

By Ape Mag

Don't label the Derby based Iveson too quickly as just another deephouse producer. Listening to Atjazz the soul and jazz are never far away, as well as the dubby sides from British dance music like broken beats and downtempo listening stuff. “I do understand why people think of me as merely a house music producer, it is the core of my productions. My first album (That Something, '99) immediately was very housey, deep and downbeat, but made from one thought. With my second album I tried a lot more; Labfunk ('01) was still about house music, but it had elements from broken beat and funk. I think it's important there are tracks with a certain hook, nothing should sound the same -rather too deep than uniformity.”

This probably has something to do with the game music Atjazz was also producing up till 2004. “Nice work in the 90's”, he says. “Back then there were not too many games around, you could put your own sound into each one. Nowadays it's become a serious business; each game has to be a triple A product, with the music getting far more serious as a result, you end up kinda part of company philosophy. For me that was the end of it, all though I did recently make something for a friend of mine who had created a nice game app. Yeah, that brought back a bit of that freedom from the early days.”

Beside this, Iveson focuses on his own productions, some theatre music and running his own imprint Atjazz Record Company. It’s a follow up to Mantis Recordings that closed its doors last year. “It was a successful label, but changes in music industry made it more difficult to keep hold of all the artists. As a result of closing it the attention shifted a bit more to me, and now I've been more busy than ever”, he says. He just released his third album Full Circle, did some extensive touring and will soon be leaving for some gigs in America. “An unfulfilled ambition, conquer America!”, he laughs. “But I think my music will fit perfectly over there.”

Atjazz knows a dj has to stay unique, especially in these days of digital sales and a faster flow of tracks. “It's a bit of a shame, music kinda lost its depth. A track's maybe a hit for a couple of weeks, being played by everyone, and then the attention is already shifting to another one. It's required some sort of different mindset, you have to come up with original stuff, as a producer and a dj.”

“Luckily I still get lots of good music from friends in America and Africa. For an example, my good friend Charles Webster and I exchange a lot of new stuff. So, globalization is a blessing in this case. Long live the worldwide communication!”