Need for Mirrors: A-Zoltar

Eddie Jux, - on 20/7/12

Interview, Bass Heavy, Drum n Bass, Jungle, Rinse Out

Eddie Jux sits down with Joe Moses and Emilio Dimitri, better known as Need for Mirrors, as they drop us an exclusive mix ahead of a flurry of summer releases. It’s clear from the first few releases on their own imprint, Zoltar, (and further afield), that they have been experimenting, drawing inspiration from all sides of drum & bass - old and new, and beyond. This is making for an exciting new perspective on a sub-genre of drum & bass already seen to be pushing the boundaries of sound-synthesis.

LISTEN TO NEED FOR MIRRORS PULSE EXCLUSIVE HERE

Where did your original drum and bass influences lie? Which producers/DJs really interested you when you first emerged onto the club scene? J: We got into drum and bass at different periods. I started around ‘94/’95 buying jungle drum and bass, early Dillinja, Krust & Photek and Goldie. I would buy jungle and drum and bass when I was hunting for hip hop records, I had no idea what I was buying and back then the Internet was not big and in my town drum and bass jungle culture was non-existent. It was not till ‘96/’97 when I started to travel around New Zealand that I found more like-minded junglists who schooled me up on the music.
E: I started in 2000. I saw Temper Temper by Goldie on late night MTV and that got me hooked. Also I went to a DJ Krust gig and had no clue who he was. After a short time I was feeding my CD player with DJ sets from Goldie, Ed Rush, Photek, Storm and many others.

Do you think elements of these can still be seen in what you do today? Yeah totally, our music mirrors our influences, tracks like Poison Apple and Greazy have influences of Krust, and Lofar had influences of Goldie and Dillinja. I think you can hear other artists such as Optical, Deep Blue, Marcus Intalex, ST Files and Calibre in our music.

Have you ever tried your collective hand at any other genres of music? We have dabbled in hip hop and 130bpm 140bpm tempos - its still a work in progress.

Having only released a handful of records on Zoltar since 2011, it’s still a relatively new label, with a reputation to build. Do you have any big plans to push the label, or is it more of a platform for your own releases? It’s just a label for us to release music between our other releases on bigger labels and to release the music with the visual element and art that we want, to create something timeless and collectable. Also the music we release on Zoltar doesn't really fit any other label’s sound, for a track to make it onto Zoltar we have to know it works in a club and that it will stand up over the years and as a body of music. The tracks we release on Zoltar have some kind of running narrative, something we connect with and would buy into if we where the listener. The quality control of what makes the label is the most essential part of running it.

Is there anything you can tell us about the plans for the label? Any exciting artists/releases lined up? Zoltar will for now just be a home for Need for Mirrors no other plans as such just keep progressing with interesting music and equally amazing art.

So what can we expect from Zoltar003, Interzone/Fabric? I noticed that Zoltar004 and 005 are already out, is there a reason for the delay? We lost the working files for this release but had already manufactured the sleeves and had the bespoke design doneon each one, so we had to move forward with Zoltar004 and 005 until we could selvage the drive which we could not and so we used some existing mixes we had available for mastering. In hindsight we should have released this last year but we wanted to see if the drive was fixable and do some extra tweaks to the mixes but this didn’t happen of course.

Another soon to drop is Palace on the Japanese label Yabai84, who’s behind the label, and how did the release come about? Yabai is Heavy 1's label. He contacted us with his idea and concept for the label and it sounded really interesting and somewhat different to the other labels we had released on and he needed some support so we sent him some tracks and he took "Palace". I hope he progresses with the label and people get behind his music and vision.

The last to mention is a collab feat. Edward Oberon on DJ Die’s label, Clear Skyz. How did you approach making this tune? Was Die keen to get a Need for Mirrors release out? Die has always been a huge influence to our music, and we had known him some time but he has a real high standard for music that he wants to release. I had sent him a lot of tunes over the years and nothing stuck for him, then we wrote "Limits of Control" with Edward Oberon, we sent him the tune and he signed in straight away the same day he heard it. We hope to work with Die again in the future.

You’ve spotted us an exclusive Pulse guest mix, are all the tunes due out in the next six weeks or so featured? The mix has some forthcoming and unreleased material by us also new tracks that are out this week or very soon by other artists, and a classic by Krust, Future Unknown that is a personal favourite of ours.

Who were your big influences as DJs, how do you like to approach a set? Do they differ from club to club? DJ-wise, Bailey, Storm, Hype, Bryan G, Die, Krust, Doc Scott, anybody that rolls it out and creates a journey regardless of the music. All of those DJs will play to the crowd and take them on a journey. We both started off as DJs and promoters so we are aware of what the promoters and punters want when they go out, but as producers we want to test and play our music so often we do not know what we are playing till we are behind the decks and we always play tunes and test tracks that we have not had time to mix or practice with. Most of the time we are in the studio before we go to the club and we are burning the tracks from that days session to test, so our sets are always going to be different.

The one set you’ve seen that has always stuck in your mind? J: Too many to mention, Bailey & Flux in Melbourne in 1999/2000, any late 90s tours to New Zealand back when the DJs played off dubplate and vinyl. That will always be magical. Doc Scott, Ed Rush, Trace, Grooverider, Kemistry and Storm, Krust & Die, Bryan G all brought hours of music, sometimes 6 hour sets or more. They all took you somewhere into the future.
E: DJ Storm set in a squat in Italy. It was a pitch-black drum and bass journey.

First record you bought as a DJ? J: Public Enemy - Yo Bum Rush the Show or Beastie Boys - Licensed to ill. I’m not sure which, maybe it was at the same time, the artwork for both is still timeless.
E: I brought a re-print of Bludcott Artattack by Ed Rush. I just bought it because it had Ed Rush's name on it. On the first listen I didnt like it at all, but I grew to love it.