Features

Jamie Anderson's Inspirations

On being asked to do this feature I thought I would have completed it in an afternoon, no problem, but in fact the question in itself is never ending.

Having spent my whole life immersed in music, how do I decide upon my influences, I mean what did actually influence me? There have been lots of records I have loved over the years but perhaps I just appreciated them for what they are rather than include them in actually influencing my life and art. So I have decided to base my choice of records on pivotal moments in my life that have lead to me making music the way I do. The people I have met, worked with, grew up with, places I have been, and the music that I can still go back to when I am at a loss for inspiration.

At which point in time do I begin? I could go as far back as growing up in West London, going to see Bob Dylan with my Mother or travelling with my Aunt to Switzerland when she was organising the Nyon Folk Festival? But that would be a long story and probably not directly answering the main question: What are my musical influences? Well, I am going to start at the point I first began recording my own music.

I moved to Bristol in 1986 and it wasn’t long before I hooked up with the hugely inspiring movement that was beginning to happen in the city; bands like Massive Attack were forming, hip hop evolved into house and DJ's were putting on their own club nights and warehouse parties playing early acid house. I knew Tricky as I used to see him around in my neighbourhood when he first broke away from Massive Attack and released Aftermath on a white label I got hold of a copy; I could really relate to this record and listened to it over 100 times. To me this wasn’t deep and depressing as it might sound now, but energising and inspiring. To see him do so well internationally made me more determined to make a career in music.

Around the same time as producers in Bristol were making a name with trip-hop, a new form of dance music was coming out of America which also took influence from hip hop in the form of hip house. A compilation album called Black Havana was released featuring both hip hop and house tracks, I probably bought it for the hip hop tracks, but was quickly taken by the house tracks on there like 3 Big Men The Time Is Now For Action. I’ve often gone back to this album when needing some inspiration and some elements from these tracks can be heard in my earlier works.

When I began DJ'ing in clubs my sets comprised of old-school hip-hop, early electro and acid house, mainly from Trax Records. Adonis was one of the best producers on that label and had a real gift for making acid tracks. Do It Properly is like all his best work in one track, it has it all. I see this as him saying to all the cheap imitations of the time, that this is the way it should be done. Bobby Konders was another favourite of mine; there are many outstanding pieces he has produced but one of my favourites was Nervous Acid.

Back in the UK, the bass driven techno sound coming from Sheffield resonated in the Bristol clubs. Early Warp Records, Unique 3 and LFO were, and still are, amazing. Join The Future is one of my favourites I used to play from that era.

Coming from a jazz background and having trained in jazz improvisation from a young age, when I first heard Dave Angel using jazz chords and bass-lines in Detroit Techno, I was totally inspired. We connected after he moved from London to Swindon and I asked him to remix one of the first Artform releases. He is a true musical pioneer and I spent a lot of time at his studio learning new production techniques. 1st Symphony is one of his first releases and still sounds fresh today.

Another artist that inspired me is Orlando Voorn. I used to DJ in Holland a lot from the mid-90’s onwards. Orlando came down with Steve Rachmad to see me play at the Melkveg one time; I was still quite young and a bit over-whelmed by meeting these guys. Records like Dream World, by Orlando and Humanaiced by Steve were inspiring to me. Record shopping at Outland put me in touch with Jerome Krom, another Dutch producer that was instrumental in bringing detroit techno influences into the new wave of tech-house that was developing in Europe. Jerome's Natural Thoughts is a great track.

Latin music is a pure combination of jazz with the energy of dance. If done in the right way electronic music sounds great with percussion and melodies influenced by traditional Latin vibes. XRS nailed it with his Brasil EP on V-Recordings, and is another pioneering musician that has inspired me. He stayed at my house / studio in Bristol a few years ago, and taught me how to set-up side-chain compression on my mixing desk. I still often use this technique today.

I’ve been a friend of Jesse Rose since we were kids in London, he moved to Bristol a few years after I moved there and I got him into studio production and DJ'ing. When he moved back to London and started producing with Switch as Induceve they released Jazz Chops on Derrick Carter’s Classic label; it’s an amazing record and I’d been attempting to chop up jazz records with house music for a while, but this showed me how it was done!

It basically all comes back to modern jazz for me, when I doubt myself or get lost competing against whichever new fashionable sub-genre is selling most at any particular time, I just listen to Miles Davis Kind Of Blue. The album came out in 1959 and as a concise musical work that pushes boundaries, it still hasn’t been beat. If there was only one record I was ever inspired by it would be this, So What.

Jamie Anderson

Tracklisting:
01. Tricky - Aftermath
02. 3 Big Men - The Time Is Now For Action
03. ADONIS - Do It Properly
04. Bobby Konders - Nervous Acid
05. Tuff Little Unit - Join The Future
06. Dave Angel - 1st symphony
07. Complex - Dream World
08. Ignacio - HumanaIced
09. XRS Land - Secrets of the Floating Island
10. Jerome - Natural Thoughts
11. Induceve - Jazz Chops
12. Miles Davis - So What